Tensions with Yad Vashem over narrative of new museum in Hungary

The government’s main museum — the House of Terror — minimises the Holocaust in relation to the Communist period.

The new Budapest Holocaust museum is to open next year, but the local Jewish leadership is concerned that its historic narrative will be influenced by a body headed by historian Maria Schmidt, who champions a narrative that says Hungarians were not complicit in the Nazi deportations.

Hungary’s main community representative body and the World Jewish Congress have both demanded that Dr Schmidt is not involved in the project.

But a smaller Jewish organisation led by Chabad rabbi Shlomo Koves, who is a vocal supporter of Mr Orbán, has partnered with the government in preparations for the new museum.

The tensions are amplified by Mr Netanyahu’s recent courting of Mr Orbán, who he sees as Israel’s main ally today in the European Union. When Hungary’s Jewish community condemned a government campaign against Hungarian-born Jewish financier George Soros, the Israeli Prime Minsiter withdrew a statement supporting them in order to assuage Mr Orbán.