Holocaust Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Anti-Jewish Remarks.

A group of Holocaust survivors has called for that Nigel Farage be honest and issue an apology for alleged antisemitic taunts he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his school days.

The Reform UK leader has said he never targeted anyone with malicious intent, suggesting it may have been mere "childish teasing".

"Being Shoah survivors, we comprehend the profound danger of hateful words – for we have witnessed where such words inevitably end," stated the survivors in a missive.

"It is crucial to understand: lauding Hitler, mimicking gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not simple joking. Not on a schoolyard. Not anywhere."

A Direct Question

The correspondence poses direct questions to the party leader: "Is it true you said ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ and mimicked gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"

The Signatories

The group of 11 survivors contains individuals with deeply traumatic personal experiences from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who saw the murder of 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
• Simon Winston, who was held in a ghetto before fleeing in 1942 and living through the rest of the war in hiding.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.

Additional names on the letter include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Growing Accounts

This intervention is a response to the dismissal of corroborating accounts by more than two dozen or more former pupils and teachers as "complete fiction" by a senior party figure.

Following the publication, further individuals from that era have come forward. Nearly thirty former pupils and teachers now state they observed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One well-known account comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a young Farage would approach him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "send them to the gas chambers", on occasion adding a hiss to imitate the sound of gas chambers.

Further Allegations

Additional alumni from minority ethnic backgrounds have also spoken publicly with stories of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar stated he was called a "Paki" and has dismissed the notion that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another individual with Asian roots characterised him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The missive from survivors asks a concluding challenge to Farage: "By denying saying those words, are you claiming that dozens of individuals are lying? Should the allegations be true, now is the opportunity to acknowledge you were wrong and say sorry."

"Those who hope to lead our country should under no circumstances divide people by race or religion. Antisemitic hatred must never be normalised. This moment is about moral responsibility. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."