German Chancellor Angela Merkel on a visit to Budapest’s Dohany Street Synagogue paid tribute to the 600,000 Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust.
Merkel, during a state visit to Hungary, laid a stone Feb. 2 on the Jewish community memorial in the synagogue backyard.
Hungarian Jewish leaders and Merkel met for one hour at Budapest Jewish Community headquarters, Andras Heisler, president of the Federation of the Hungarian Jewish Communities, told the Hungarian TV channel ATV.
The Dohany Street Synagogue memorial is the only one in Hungary that commemorates the Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust. No public monuments memorialize Hungary’s Jewish Holocaust victims, which is a sore subject with the country’s Jewish community. — jta