The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Tuesday slammed the decision by the Hungarian state to grant a prestigious award to Zsolt Bayer, a journalist long criticized for articles deemed racist and anti-Semitic.
The state awarded Bayer the Knights Cross of the Order of Merit last week.
“This award is intended to recognize individuals who demonstrate excellence in service to the country and ‘the promotion of universal human values,’” the museum said in a statement quoted by JTA.
“Bayer has a long record of racist speech and has written highly provocative anti-Semitic and anti-Roma articles in the Hungarian media," it added.
“He has referred to Jews as ‘stinking excrement’ and has written hateful pieces about the Roma, calling them ‘animals’ that ‘should not be allowed to exist,’” the museum statement continued.
The museum called on Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who heads the Fidesz party, and President Janos Ader to rescind the award “immediately.”
Presenting it, the museum said, “reflects the long-standing refusal of the leadership of Hungary’s ruling Fidesz Party to distance itself from Bayer, in spite of Bayer’s repeated pattern of racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, and anti-Roma incitement.”
On Monday, Andras Heisler, the president of Hungary’s main Jewish umbrella organization, Mazsihisz, joined at least two dozen Hungarian recipients of the same honor who returned their own awards in protest of the award being given to Bayer.
“I was proud of this award and thought that it would serve to strengthen the moral values that spring from a diverse range of people, people of different faiths, people who support different political sides; I received this award together with representatives of a broad range of religious institutions,” Heisler, who received his Knights Cross in 2011, wrote on Facebook, according to JTA. “This represented to me the value of diversity; and valuing each other’s views represents the future of Hungary.”
"The presentation of the honor to Bayer contradicted these values," continued Heisler. “I value diversity, but not destructive extremism. I do not wish to belong to any community to which Zsolt Bayer belongs, even virtually.”
Anti-Semitism remains prevalent in Hungary, with much of that being perpetrated by the country's second most popular political party, Jobbik.
In November of 2012, one of Jobbik’s members released a statement saying that a list should be compiled of all of the Jewish members of government.
He was followed by another Jobbik member who called publicly for the resignation of a fellow MP who claimed to have Israeli citizenship.
Orban's government has sometimes been accused of cozying up to Jobbik and glossing over Hungary's role in the deportation of Jews, despite saying it has "zero tolerance" for anti-Semitism.
In January, Orban acknowledged for the first time his country’s role in the Holocaust, saying many Hungarians chose "bad instead of good" in helping deport Jews to Nazi death camps.