Joining an international chorus of anger and indignation, Katrina Lantos Swett is returning an award she received from the Hungarian government because the same award was given to a journalist long criticized for being anti-Semitic and racist.
“He’s really a pretty despicable human being,” Lantos Swett said of Zsolt Bayer, who in late August was given the Knights Cross of the Order of Merit by Hungary.
Lantos Swett received the Knights Cross in 2009 for humanitarian work she had done in Hungary, where her father was born, but now that award is being boxed up and will be mailed back.
“I feel – many people feel – the award has been sullied by its being bestowed on somebody so patently unworthy,” she said Friday.
The Knights Cross is designed to recognize people who have served Hungary and promoted “universal human values.”
According to news reports, at least 44 recipients of the Knights Cross, including artists, diplomats and scientists, have said they will return the prize since Bayer, an associate of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, received his. A number of organizations have joined the criticism, including the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.
“(Bayer) 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 said in a statement, which called on the Hungarian government to rescind the award. The Roma are an ethnic group, sometimes called gypsies, who make up the largest minority group in Hungary.
“Those who speak Hungarian say there’s almost an added dimension of what (Bayer) says in Hungarian. He really has gone to a place that is just quite shocking in his language,” said Lantos Swett.
Lantos Swett is the daughter of the late Tom Lantos, a Hungarian native who was the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the United States Congress. Her husband is Dick Swett, former New Hampshire congressman and ambassador to Denmark.
A Bow resident, she is founder of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice in Concord.
Lantos Swett said returning the Knights Cross is painful because of her family’s love for Hungary and its culture.
“I will say that I’m a very proud Hungarian-American, I love Hungary. My father, despite all that he suffered and experienced in his youth, he really was passionately devoted to his Hungarian heritage,” she said.
The Hungarian prime minister has been criticized by the American government for efforts to centralize power, control civic groups and control the media. Among other things, he has built a wall among part of the country’s border to block the influx of immigrants from Syria and other Middle Eastern conflicts.
Bayer’s award was given for his work representing victims of communism, Orban’s office said last week.
Lantos Swett said Hungary has been facing up to its past, especially its role in the success of the Nazi Party, an effort that has been complicated by Europe’s migrant crisis.
“There are old strains of xenophobia, racism, hatred – also big issues as to how Europe in the 21st century deals with the changing dynamics of the continent,” she said. “It brings out the best and the worst in every country.”
Lantos Swett said she hoped actions like hers would lead the Hungarian government to have second thoughts about associating itself with Bayer.
“My father is no longer with us, but I remember clearly the incredible pride he felt when he was awarded Hungary’s highest civilian honor, the Grand Cross,” Lantos Swett said. “I do not presume to know exactly what my father would do were he still alive. However, I feel confident he would call on Hungary to restore the honor and virtue of this award by stripping Mr. Bayer of this unmerited recognition.”
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313, dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
