Calls are growing for Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban to sack the head of a state-funded museum for making anti-Semitic comments likening U.S. financier George Soros to Adolf Hitler. 

Orban's administration has long vilified Soros, a Hungarian Jew who emigrated after World War II, as part of a broader campaign against immigration and liberalism, accusing the EU of trying to force Hungary to accept migrants under Soros's influence.

In an article published on Saturday, Szilard Demeter, who is in charge of the Petofi Literary Museum and acts as a government cultural commissioner, described Soros as "the liberal Fuhrer." He added that Europe was Soros's "gas chamber" with "poisonous gas" flowing from the capsule of multicultural society.

Following a backlash from politicians and Jewish groups, Demeter announced he would withdraw the article published on the pro-government news-site Origo.hu, saying he agreed that "the Nazi parallel could unintentionally hurt the memory of the victims."

Prior to the statement, Hungarian Jewish groups such as the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities called his article "unforgivable" and "an ugly provocation."

Hungary's main opposition party, the Democratic Coalition, called for Demeter's immediate dismissal.

"The Democratic Coalition expects from the government that Szilard Demeter should be unemployed by the end of today. A man like him has no place in public life, not just in a European country but anywhere in the world," it said.

Former prime minister Gordon Bajnai and Budapest's liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony also called on Orban to fire Demeter.

"Szilard Demeter is [Orban's] man, his culture politician ... his shame, he should not fill any official position from Monday morning," said Karacsony in a Facebook message.

In the article, Demeter said Poles and Hungarians were the "new Jews" and being targeted by liberals who wanted to expel them from the bloc, referencing a European Union budget row between Poland and Hungary and other members of the bloc.

Hungary and Poland have said they would block the EU's new  $2.1 trillion budget and coronavirus recovery fund if conditions around the rule-of-law were attached, with Orban describing the criteria as "blackmail" against member states that oppose immigration.

The Hungarian government has been at odds with Soros for years over his funding of liberal organizations and institutions in Hungary, with the prime minister describing Soros as "one of the most corrupt people in the world" and "an economic criminal."

In 2019, the Central European University, which was founded in Budapest by the 90-year-old financier, said it was being forced out of the country by the nationalist government, moving most of its operations to Vienna.