I thank him for making the standpoint of the Hungarian government very clear: No honors must be given to those who prepared the ground for the mass murder of 600,000 Hungarian Jews by Nazi Germany in 1944,” Lauder said on Wednesday.

“It would have been a travesty if the taxpayer, including more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews, would have had to contribute toward a statue for a man who not only hated Jews, but who helped actively in their persecution,” he said, adding that such a monument would be “an affront” to Hungarian victims of the Holocaust.

On Monday, Orbán said in Hungarian parliament that monuments to political leaders at a time when Hungary’s sovereignty was lost, must not be supported. Lauder also thanked the US government for voicing its opposition to the Hungarian statue plans.

According to the original plans, the life-size statue of Hóman would have been mostly paid for by the Hungarian justice ministry. The proponent Hóman Bálint Foundation has decided to send the funds back to the ministry but announced that it would start collecting private donations to go on with the scheme.

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