Elie Wiesel renounces Hungarian award in protest at Nazi 'whitewash'

Nobel laureate condemns officials for honouring member of
Hungary's second world war far-right parliament

Reuters in Budapest
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 June 2012 17.34 BST

Nobel peace prize laureate Elie Wiesel has renounced a Hungarian state award he received in 2004 in protest against what he said was a whitewashing of the role of former Hungarian governments in the deportation of Jews during the second world war.

In a letter to the Hungarian parliament's speaker, Laszlo Kover, Wiesel, 83, said he was furious that Kover had participated in a ceremony honouring a writer who was a loyal member of Hungary's second world war far-right parliament, an act he suggested reflected the authorities' willingness to gloss over the country's dark past.

"It has become increasingly clear that Hungarian authorities are encouraging the whitewashing of tragic and criminal episodes in Hungary's past, namely the wartime Hungarian governments' involvement in the deportation and murder of hundreds of thousands of its Jewish citizens," Wiesel wrote in his letter.

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