Hungary honors Horthy

A six-metre-high statue of István Horthy, son of Miklós Horthy, an ally to Hitler during the interwar period, was unveiled by Hungary’s Defence Minister Csaba Hende on 20 August. The sculpture is in Siófok, just outside Budapest, and is seen as a strategy by Viktor Orbán’s government to revive the Horthy era.

As head of state, Miklós Horthy deported more than half a million Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in 1944. Yet despite the clear anti-Semitic connotations, this statue is just one of many Horthy memorial sites built since the inauguration of right-wing Prime Minister Orbán in 2010.