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Hungarian Government increases pensions for Holocaust victims

03 January 2013
1 minute read

Agence France-Presse reports that as of 1 January the Hungarian Government has raised by 50 % the pensions it pays to the Jewish victims of crimes committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. The wire service report points out that the opposition has frequently criticized the conservative cabinet of Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán in the past for his alleged indifference to antisemitism.

The government announced the new measures at the end of 2012. During 2014 another increase to the special pension will also occur. The monthly payments range from the equivalent of EUR 17 to EUR 100 per month depending on the survivor’s age. Currently as many as 8 000 people are entitled to the pension, but that number continues to decline given the advanced age of the survivors.

The regime of Miklós Horthy, who led Hungary until October 1944, was not boldly antisemitic at first despite its alliance with Nazi Germany, but during the second phase of the war, under German pressure and particularly after the country was occupied by Germany, the persecution of Jewish people became significantly extensive. A total of as many as 600 000 Hungarian Jews perished, most of them in extermination camps.

The Jewish community in Hungary currently has about 100 000 members. At the start of December about 10 000 people demonstrated against antisemitism in Budapest after a Hungarian MP of the ultra-right Jobbik party, Márton Gyöngyösi, proposed compiling a list of Jewish MPs and cabinet members.

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