Let�s return to history today for at least two reasons. The first is that as time goes by it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Orb�n government, by setting up a number of historical institutes, is trying to create �an alternative history� of modern Hungary between 1867 and 1989 more...

A few days ago I was toying with the idea of returning to my discussion of interwar Hungarian history as portrayed by S�ndor Szak�ly, director-general of the government�s very own historical institute, brazenly named Veritas Research Institute more...

Anyone who has followed the alarming rise of Jobbik, the Movement for a Better Hungary since its establishment in October 2003, would find the decision of the Supreme Court absolutely incomprehensible. more...

As the controversy over the historical interpretation of the Hungarian Holocaust rages on, we should not forget that Hungary is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Hungary is a signatory to the Stockholm Declaration of January 2000 in which the Hungarian government pledged �to strengthen � efforts to promote education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust� and �to share a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust.� more...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban this month addressed the annual plenary of the World Jewish Congress, which was held in Budapest. more...

I would like to share with you an opinion piece by Zsófia Mihancsik, editor-in-chief of Galamus, whom I consider one of the sharpest commentators on Hungarian politics. more...

Leaving Israel in times of crisis is never easy, for all the obvious reasons. The natural concern over The Situation in general (Israel's geo-political situation and critical interests) and the safety of loved ones first and foremost, but not only, often make a trip abroad in the middle of a war, or even a  limited military operation, or such an operation that might escalate into a war, a very nerve-wracking experience. more...

Who was Sándor Képíró, the man who was, near the end of his long life, identified as the last Nazi criminal among other things? more...

In 2005, the Australian government and ALP opposition stated their firm principled position on war criminals: extradite or prosecute. more...

Last week’s High Court decision was less a triumphant victory for an alleged war criminal than a sorry indictment of Australia’s senior judiciary. more...

It's nearly a decade since I traipsed along sheep tracks, poked around dark forests and visited elderly residents in grim Soviet-era housing tenements while searching for clues about alleged Nazis in Australia. more...

ACCUSED war criminal Charles Zentai should be sent to Hungary to face murder charges, despite the High Court upholding a decision not to extradite him on war crimes, Labor backbencher Michael Danby has told parliament. more...

Wednesday morning in Canberra the Australian High Court will announce whether Charles (Karoly) Zentai, who is accused of murdering a Jewish teenager he caught on a Budapest tram without the requisite yellow star in November 1944, can be extradited to Hungary. The decision will mark the culmination of a legal battle which has gone on for almost eight years, since I first exposed him living in Perth, Australia, in late 2004. more...

Just when it looked like the Hungarian authorities finally got the message and arrested Laszlo Csatary, the 97-year-old former commander of the Kassa ghetto during 1944 (who was convicted of war crimes by the Czechoslovak court in 1948 in absentia), newspapers have reported that the prosecution has dropped one of the charges. more...

One of the problems of getting older is short-term memory loss versus the clarity of long-term memory gain. Of course, being only 39-ish and fully intending to be that age for the next decade - as Dorothy Parker said, 39 is the best 10 years of a woman's life - my niggle with memory failure is only just starting. more...

The arrest in Budapest last week of Laszlo Csatary - a 97-year-old former police officer accused of Holocaust-era war crimes - could not have come at a worse time for Hungary's embattled government. more...

Wenn wieder einmal ein greiser Nazi-Kriegsverbrecher ausfindig gemacht wird, stellt sich von Jahr zu Jahr deutlicher die Frage, ob der Aufwand, eine solche Person zu verfolgen, noch lohne � angesichts des fortgeschrittenen Alters und der oft angegriffenen Gesundheit. Diese Reaktion gab es auch, als bekannt wurde, dass das Simon Wiesenthal Center, dokumentiert von der britischen Boulevardzeitung �The Sun�, den 97-j�hrigen L�szl� Csat�ry in Budapest aufgesp�rt hat. more...

..In 1944, the Jews of Hungary, numbering some 700,000, remained the most physically intact Jewish community in Europe. Close to 64,000 Hungarian Jews had already lost their lives; 20,000 ‘alien’ Jews had been sent across the border into Poland and shot at Kamenets-Poldolsk, and a majority of the rest were Jewish men killed when serving in labour battalions on the Ukrainian front. more...