Adam LeBor

The passengers on an El Al flight from Tel Aviv last week to Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport were quickly separated and ordered to put their luggage through a screening machine. New checks have been implemented to ensure that travellers are not bringing in forbidden goods from East Jerusalem, the West Bank or the Golan Heights. Writing in Nieuwrechts, a conservative website, Sivan Behr described how surly customs officers corralled the passengers, many of them Israeli, into a separate queue, while shouting at them. Dutch officials, of course, have always been efficient at separating Jews and non-Jews. During the war they separated 107,000 Jews and sent them to the Nazi camps. Only 5,000 returned. ​Can we expect such scenes soon at Heathrow or other British airports?

One of the most important and dramatic dates in Hungarian and European history is 15 March 1848. The dashing poet Sandor Petofi recited the stirring ‘Nemzeti dal’ (‘National song’). A group of revolutionaries seized a printing press and published the Twelve Points. Their demands included a Hungarian parliament, freedom of the press, civic and religious equality before the law, jury trials and freedom for political prisoners. A huge crowd gathered on the steps of the National Museum in Budapest and the revolution was soon in full swing. After months of war with their Austrian overlords, Hungary declared independence from the Habsburgs. But by summer 1849 free Hungary was crushed, after Russia invaded.

It is a most fitting tribute: an iron and steel statue of the Iron Lady in a city once behind the Iron Curtain. And not just any city – but Budapest, a place that Mrs Thatcher electrified with her visit in February 1984. The statue commemorating her 100th birthday was unveiled last week in the Millenaris culture complex in the Hungarian capital. The ceremony was both moving and beautifully choregraphed as several luminaries of the Thatcher era and her children Sir Mark and Carol gathered with Hungarian government ministers to commemorate her legacy. More than 40 years after her first arrival, the Iron Lady is still remembered in Budapest with affection and admiration.

Artillery boomed over the Buda hills, the flashes of explosions slicing through the freezing winter dusk. The crack of rifle fire sounded nearby and the air was thick with the acrid stink of cordite. It was 24 December 1944 and Giorgio Perlasca was trying to get to the Spanish Legation villa to celebrate Christmas. The Hungarian soldiers at the checkpoint said it was not possible to proceed. The Russians were advancing and were now just a few hundred yards away. Perlasca explained that he was a Spanish diplomat and asked again to pass through. The soldiers reluctantly agreed. A few minutes later Perlasca was inside the Legation building. Sixty people had taken refuge there but had somehow managed to find a Christmas tree and some presents for him.