German Chancellor pays respects at Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest

German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the Dohany Street Synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe, on Monday afternoon during a short visit to Budapest.

Merkel met with Andras Heisler, chief of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary and with Robert Frolich, chief rabbi, who took Merkel on a tour of the building and the adjoined museum.

She then spent some time in the synagogue's yard, the Raoul Wallenberg Park, which also serves as a cemetery for over 2,000 people who died within the walled ghetto that included the synagogue during the German occupation of the country in World War II.

Merkel met several Holocaust survivors there and then paid tribute to Holocaust victims at the Emanuel Memorial Tree, a sculpture of a weeping willow made by Imre Varga, with the names of the hundreds of thousands of Jewish Hungarians exterminated by the Nazis inscribed on its leaves. Merkel left a stone of remembrance by the tree.

She then held a private meeting with the heads of the Jewish organizations of Hungary, who briefed her on the Jewish community of Hungary, emphasizing education and education policy.

Earlier, Merkel addressed a gathering at the Andrassy German language university, where she emphasized the principles of pluralism, peace, and freedom as fundamentals of Europe.

Speaking of the terrorist killings in Paris, she said that Europe could not bend to the diabolical logic of terrorists and warned of the threats of Islamist terrorism and anti-Semitism.

Merkel also praised the efforts of civil organizations and the independent media. In Europe, she said, the opposition is not the enemy but a partner in a competition, which means the majority needs to be moderate and protect the minority. There is no place in society for religious or ethnic exclusion, she warned. Endit