subway lines Friday, March 4, as authorities in two countries were searching for a suspected Hungarian Nazi.
Pictures from New York-based artist Art Spiegelman’s "Maus," a comic book novel depicting Jews as mice and Germans as cats, are on display in 46 metro cars.
The pictures must be seen as a black-and-white interpretation of his own parents’ survival of the Auschwitz death camp, suggested Hungarian Culture Minister Andras Bozoki.
"What happens when there are adults who never grow up, for whom the use of force and murder are only games," he asked at the exhibition’s opening at one of the capital’s metro stations.
"This question is the subject of the infernal humor of Spiegelman’s Auschwitz comics," The French News Agency (AFP) quoted him as saying.
600,000 HUNGARIANS DIED
The opening came in a year Hungary remembers the 60th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust in which an estimated 600,000 Hungarian Jews died, most of them in the Auschwitz concentration camp. It remains a sensitive topic in Hungary, which was a close ally of Nazi Germany and where US officials have complained about renewed anti Semitism in recent years.
However under pressure from the Nazi hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Hungarian military tribunal issued an international arrest warrant this week against one suspected Nazi, an 86-year old Hungarian-born Australian. Charles Zentai, allegedly tortured and murdered an 18-year old Jew during World War II.
Yet, Australian police have so far been unable to find him, Hungarian News Agency (MTI) reported late Friday, March 4. Hungarian government efforts to deal with the country’s troubled past come just days after Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom visited Budapest to boost relations between Hungary and Israel.
JOURNALIST EXPELLED
His two-day visit was overshadowed by an incident late Wednesday when a Hungarian representing the Internet publication Budapest Week was expelled from the Israeli ambassador’s residence in Budapest for wearing a "Free Palestine" t-shirt during an official reception, an official told BosNewsLife.
"Hungarian journalist Tamas Novak had an invitation and arrived well dressed wearing a tie," said Israeli Embassy spokesperson Gyorgyi Orban. "He later went to the bathroom where he apparently changed his clothing and came back wearing a t-shirt with the inscription: ‘Free Palestine’" she added. Novak was not immediately available for comment, but Hungarian right wing newspaper Magyar Nemzet published his picture wearing the t-shirt.
Several security personnel escorted him from the residence compound, Gyorgyi explained. Shalom had earlier made clear that Israel wanted peace with Palestinians, but also warned Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon and end its alleged involvement in terrorism against the Jewish state.
(With BosNewsLife Research, Stefan J. Bos).
