Antisemitism – Trace

Haver creates dialogue between Jewish and non-Jewish young people in Hungary through informal education and peer-led conversations. Its work helps challenge antisemitic stereotypes, open space for questions, and make Jewish identity and contemporary Jewish life more visible in educational settings.

As physical incidents such as vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and buildings, or harassment of Jewish individuals are rare, Hungary can be regarded as safe for Jews. However antisemitic hate speech is fairly common, mainly occurring in coded language in the online sphere (e.g. threats targeting Jewish organisations) and by political actors wrapped in coded language and wrapped in conspiracy theories. Antisemitic narratives have been amplified by digital misinformation and by the polarisation of public debate, particularly around migration, international finance, and cultural liberalism. Surveys by the Action and Protection Foundation indicate that over one in five Hungarians still express antisemitic beliefs—one of the highest rates in the EU—revealing how fragile progress remains despite formal legal protections.

From Persecution to Manipulation: Historical Continuities

Hungary’s modern antisemitism has deep political roots dating back to the second half of the 19th century, culminating in the catastrophic rupture of the Holocaust. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Hungary had one of the largest and most integrated Jewish populations in Central Europe—around 825,000 people, including converts and those of mixed ancestry. Under Miklós Horthy’s authoritarian regime, aligned with Nazi Germany, “Jewish Laws” introduced from 1938 defined Jews by ancestry and excluded them from public service and professions. Following the German occupation in March 1944, the collaborationist Arrow Cross Party accelerated persecution: over 400,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau within eight weeks, while thousands were executed along the banks of the Danube in Budapest. By the end of the war, nearly three-quarters of Hungary’s pre-war Jewish population—around 565,000 people—had been murdered.

After 1945, and particularly following communist consolidation in 1949, Jewish life entered a paradoxical period of both protection and suppression. On the one hand, the state outlawed overt antisemitism; on the other, it dissolved, Jewish political and cultural autonomy. Public discussion of the Holocaust memory was discouraged, property restitution was limited, and survivors faced a quiet hostility in a society eager to forget.

The 1956 Hungarian Revolution briefly opened public space, but after its suppression by Soviet troops, repression intensified again. The state permitted limited religious activity, but synagogues emptied as younger generations turned secular or emigrated – notably after 1956 and again in the 1970s. Under János Kádár’s regime, Hungary became one of the more relaxed communist states, allowing modest Jewish revival.Yet, the 1967 Six-Day War, and the subsequent Soviet-aligned “anti-Zionist” rhetoric once again reinforced suspicion toward Jewish intellectuals and community figures.

The Return of the Repressed

Democratisation in 1989 reopened public space for Jewish renewal but also for extremist narratives. Far-right parties such as MIÉP, then Jobbik and subsequently Mi Hazánk Mozgalom, as well as far-right groups and media outlets close to nationalist movements, popularised antisemitic tropes, particularly during the 2008–2010 financial crisis and the 2015 migration debates. Since 2015, the government’s anti-migration campaigns have also exploited antisemitic conspiracy theories. In the first half of the 2010s, the public commemoration of wartime figures implicated in antisemitic policies—such as Regent Horthy— and the relativising of Hungary’s role in the Holocaust provoked international concern.

Despite Hungary’s legal protections for religious communities, modern antisemitism in Hungary is characterized by covert prejudice and othering. Jewish organisations, educators, and memorial initiatives—such as those at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest—continue to defend historical truth amid attempts at distortion and relativisation. Hungary’s experience reveals that antisemitism is not a remnant of the past but a recurring test of democratic resilience.

EXPLORE THE HISTORY OF Antigypsyism IN Hungary

2004 – 2024

EU ACCESSION & MEMBERSHIP

Between 2004 and 2024, antisemitism in Hungary evolved within an increasingly polarised political environment shaped by nationalism, memory politics and the mainstreaming of far-right discourse. EU accession in 2004 strengthened Hungary’s legal obligations to combat hate speech and discrimination, yet enforcement remained inconsistent, allowing antisemitic narratives to circulate widely. The period saw the rise and consolidation of radical-right movements—from Jobbik and its allied organisations, such as the paramilitary Hungarian Guard, to Mi Hazánk Movement—whose rhetoric normalised conspiracy theories about “foreign influence,” “global elites” and dual loyalty. These narratives were further amplified by far-right media ecosystems such as U.S.-based Kuruc.info, which spread antisemitic content with impunity. At the same time, successive governments increasingly instrumentalised historical memory, most notably through the 2011 Fundamental Law’s claim that Hungary “lost its sovereignty” in March 1944 and the 2014 German Occupation Memorial—both criticised for shifting responsibility for the Holocaust away from Hungarian state institutions and society.

Antisemitic incidents—including assaults, vandalism, cemetery desecrations and public harassment—persisted across the two decades, often accompanied by weak policing responses or inadequate legal follow-up. High-profile controversies, such as the House of Fates project and the 2017 anti-Soros campaign, deepened concerns by echoing long-standing antisemitic tropes. Civil society and Jewish organisations mounted sustained resistance, from the Living Memorial protest to legal advocacy against hate crime impunity. The government’s eventual adoption of a National Strategy Against Antisemitism in 2024 marked an important formal commitment, yet the period overall revealed a widening gap between protective legal frameworks and the continued mainstreaming of antisemitic rhetoric in political, media and public spheres.

1989 – 2004

DEMOCRATISATION & TRANSITION

Between 1991 and 2004, antisemitism in post-communist Hungary re-emerged in new and often more public forms, shaped by political transition, economic hardship and the rise of the radical right. As democratic institutions took shape, far-right actors increasingly used antisemitic narratives to interpret the upheavals of market liberalisation, privatisation and the collapse of the socialist welfare system. Writers and politicians such as István Csurka mainstreamed conspiracy theories about “Jewish influence,” while debates over national identity fuelled disputes about Hungary’s wartime past. The reburial of Miklós Horthy in 1993, together with growing efforts to rehabilitate interwar nationalism, contributed to a climate in which Holocaust distortion and historical revisionism gained visibility.

During the same period, extremist groups and emerging far-right parties translated these narratives into public mobilisation. MIÉP entered parliament in 1998 with an openly antisemitic platform, while skinhead groups and radical-nationalist organisations staged violent attacks, synagogue vandalism and provocations such as the “Day of Honour” commemorations. The emergence of Jobbik in 2003 further institutionalised far-right discourse. Although the state took steps toward historical accountability—most notably through the 1997 compensation law and the opening of the Páva Street Holocaust Memorial Centre—legal enforcement remained weak. By the time of EU accession in 2004, antisemitism had become embedded in segments of political culture, media discourse and public opinion, exposing the fragility of democratic transition in confronting historical prejudice.

1945 – 1989

AUTHORITARIANISM & SURVEILLANCE

In the decades following the Holocaust, antisemitism in Hungary did not disappear but adapted to new political realities. The immediate post-war years were marked by trauma, social dislocation, and intense economic hardship, creating an atmosphere in which pre-existing prejudices quickly resurfaced. Rumours of ritual murder spread nationwide in 1946, igniting mob violence from Budapest to rural towns and revealing how deeply blood libel beliefs remained embedded even after genocide. Returning Jewish survivors often encountered hostility when reclaiming homes and property, and several pogroms—most notably in Kunmadaras, Szolnok and Miskolc—saw crowds attack Jews with lethal force. Although courts prosecuted some perpetrators and Act XXV of 1946 condemned the persecution of Hungarian Jewry, restitution was limited and rarely effective. Under early communist rule, Jews were simultaneously stigmatised as “speculators” and, paradoxically, accused of collective responsibility for Soviet power, fuelling narratives of “Judeobolshevism” that resurfaced during the 1956 Revolution.

From the late 1940s onward, state antisemitism took new forms. Stalinist anti-Zionist campaigns targeted Jewish institutions, with show trials and secret police (ÁVH) surveillance turning religious and communal life into a site of suspicion. Though physical violence declined under consolidated communist rule, antisemitic stereotypes persisted in political rhetoric, intellectual debates and everyday discourse. By the 1980s, economic decline and youth radicalisation encouraged new far-right subcultures, such as the emerging skinhead movement, which openly embraced nationalist hostility. As communism collapsed, prominent public figures—most notably István Csurka and Sándor Csoóri—revived narratives of Jewish political dominance and national “otherness,” signalling that antisemitism would continue to shape Hungary’s post-communist landscape.

1939 – 1945

WAR & GENOCIDE

Between 1939 and 1945, antisemitism in Hungary deepened from discrimination into a total assault on Jewish existence, reshaping every aspect of daily life. What began as tightening legal restrictions – employment quotas, racial definitions, exclusion from public life – rapidly evolved into a system designed to erase Jewish presence altogether. Jewish families experienced the progressive stripping of rights, livelihoods, and dignity: property was confiscated, professions closed, and religious institutions degraded. Forced-labour battalions tore husbands, sons, and fathers from their families and subjected them to starvation, violence, and lethal assignments on the Eastern Front. Everyday movement, social contact, and even survival became regulated through racial ordinances that marked Jews as outsiders in their own country. As Hungary aligned itself more closely with Nazi Germany, public hostility grew bolder, and rumours of impending catastrophe permeated Jewish communities long before mass deportations began.

After the German occupation in March 1944, this atmosphere of fear turned into an unbroken cascade of terror. Jews were forced from their homes, marked with yellow stars, herded into overcrowded ghettos, and separated from non-Jewish society in the space of weeks. Deportations to Auschwitz unfolded with devastating speed, leaving families torn apart within hours of arrival. Those who remained in Budapest endured Arrow Cross brutality—public executions, starvation in the ghetto, and massacres in hospitals and orphanages. Survival became a matter of hiding, relying on forged papers, or the rare protection of diplomats and rescuers, while the state actively sought their annihilation. By the war’s end, antisemitism had transformed Hungary into one of the deadliest landscapes of the Holocaust, leaving an almost entirely destroyed Jewish world in its wake.