BUDAPEST– On a cold spring day, before the trees began to bud, Hungarian journalist Kinga Rajvak invites us into her apartment in the old Jewish Quarter of Budapest. The building stands tall, its bright green door contrasting the light gray of the early morning sky.
Right across from her wood dining room table sits a palm plant basking in the sun. It hides a discolored brick window frame. Rajvak said, “this dent right here was from a Russian bomb, during the 1954 uprising.”
The combination between past and present haunts Hungary. Talking about current events tends to lead into a comparison of a similar event from one of the country’s many dark chapters of its long history.
Hungary made headlines for its exclusionary and anti-Muslim refugee laws during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis. Today, Ukrainian refugees receive very different treatment, though the laws remain the same. The common factor in these crises is Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
On April 3, Orbán won his fourth consecutive term as prime minister, according to election results. Much of his party’s platform consists of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and far-right ideals that are similar to legislation currently introduced and passed in Texas and Florida. Orbán describes his governing style as “illiberal democracy,” and is critical of Western values. He is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, taking a pro-Russian stance on the war in Ukraine.
This relationship ratcheted up recent tensions in Budapest. Religious non-profits including Caritas, the Jewish Community Center (JCC) and the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee all helped refugees when Orbán’s government would not. As the April election drew nearer, the relief efforts were folded into a joint charity council that now has complete government oversight.
Many religious leaders involved in Ukrainian relief efforts are furious about Putin’s war and Orbán’s support for it. However, they must hold their tongue out of fear of government retaliation. They fear that they will lose whatever government backing that they get for the relief efforts.
The political split with the government, however, does not inhibit the work of the religious nonprofits, such as the JCC Budapest, according to the agency’s director, Marcel Kenesei. Instead, he said that the JCC focuses on its humanitarian efforts rather than on Orbán’s agenda. Kenesei said the majority of the Ukrainian refugees that his agency has helped decided not to stay in Hungary long-term but instead emigrate to Israel.
“A lot of the people who live in Ukraine and belong to the Jewish community, and decide to leave the country, they are going to end up in Israel because a lot of the Jews have either Israeli citizenship or they are eligible to apply,” Kenesei said. “To get Israeli citizenship, that was an obvious choice for a lot of people.”
For Lyubov and her 4 year-old daughter, Daniel, who withheld their surnames for privacy, the ultimate goal is to get to Israel, she said sitting in the main room of the JCC, as her daughter drew in the seat next to her.
“So like all the people who came here, we need to spend some time here, then go to Israel because we are Jewish,” Lyubov said. “It takes somebody two weeks, maybe three weeks to make these documents.”
Lyubov and Daniel have no documents with them other than their passports. They fled Bucha just days before an alleged massacre was revealed to the world through drone footage obtained by the British government. Since Lyubov did not have documentation, they could only travel by train or bus. At first, she said she took Daniel to a border town in Poland. Once they arrived, she said she immediately left for Hungary because there were too many Ukrainians and not enough resources for her daughter and her. But, Budapest was never going to be a final destination for them.
“As far as I know, Viktor Orbán, the Prime Minister of Hungary, is more loyal to Russians than other prime ministers of other countries, and I don’t know which political view there will be in Hungary with him in power,” she said. “So, I would like to move to the place where we know for sure they defend us and want to stay on our side.”
Lyubov looked down at Daniel who was fussing with her red glasses and rubbing her eyes. As she was climbing into her mother’s lap, she gave Lyubov her stuffed rabbit to hold for her. Lyubov looked into the animal’s black beaded eyes and said, “our bunny is with us.”