Statue for Hungarian anti-Semite?

This video says about itself:

Shock over Hungary Anti-Semitism: Diplomats, Jewish leaders protest against planned statue

14 December 2015

Washington has expressed shock and disappontent at Hungarian plans to erect a statue of Balint Homan, a WWII politician who contributed to murderous anti-Semitism in Hungary in the 1930s and 1940s.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Anti-fascist crowds bid to halt pro-nazi statue

Tuesday 15th December 2015

DIPLOMATS, anti-fascists and Jewish groups held a candle-lit demonstration in Szekesfehervar, Hungary, on Sunday evening against a planned statue honouring late pro-nazi minister Balint Homan.

As a minister in the 1930s Mr Homan spearheaded anti-semitic legislation before urging the deportation of Hungarian Jews in 1944.

Nazi Germany and its Arrow Cross Party allies murdered 565,000 Hungarian Jews during the second world war.

After Hungary’s liberation by the Red Army, war criminal Mr Homan was sentenced to life imprisonment for voting to declare war on the Soviet Union in 1941. He died in jail in 1951.

“Balint Homan was an emblematic figure in the humiliation and deportation of Hungarian Jews,” said Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities president Andras Heisler.

“He was an anti-semite who does not deserve to be honoured.”

From YouTube:

NEW YORK/BUDAPEST, July 8 [2015] – The World Jewish Congress (WJC) is urging authorities in a Hungarian city to abandon plans to honor a Horthy-era government minister well known for his actions against the Jews. Municipal leaders in Székesfehérvár, a city of 100,000 inhabitants located between Budapest and Lake Balaton, are planning to erect a life-size bronze statue in honor of Bálint Homan (1885-1951). It is to be funded in large part through a grant from the Hungarian Justice Ministry.

WJC President Ronald S. Lauder called on Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to block plans for the statue from moving forward. “Seventy years after the end of World War II, it is inconceivable and wrong for a city to erect a statue in honor of a known anti-Semite and a key figure in the persecution of Hungarian Jews before and during World War II. Homan was an outspoken supporter of Nazi Germany and the fascist Arrow Cross regime in 1944, and he remained unrepentant until his death,” said Lauder.

“Bálint Homan was an emblematic figure in the humiliation and deportation of Hungarian Jews. He was an anti-Semite who does not deserve to be honored, and doing so would insult the victims of the Holocaust,” declared WJC Vice-President András Heisler, who also serves as president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (Mazsihisz).

In a letter to Székesfehérvár Mayor András Cser-Palkovics, a member of Orbán’s Fidesz party, Heisler recently wrote: “From October 1932, Bálint Hóman, as culture minister in several Hungarian governments, played a key role in the systematic outlawing of the Hungarian Jewish people. His name is connected to the first anti-Jewish law. He supported banning Jews from exercising certain professions. Before the German occupation [in 1944], he wanted to expel Jews and later served as a member of the Arrow Cross regime.”

Heisler added that no Hungarian citizen today could be proud of a personality like Homan, and he stressed that Homan’s academic achievements could not outweigh the role he played before and during the Holocaust.