Holocaust Victims Demand Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Alleged Antisemitic Statements.

A group of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage be honest and issue an apology for alleged antisemitic comments he is said to have made toward Jewish pupils during his school days.

The Reform UK leader has claimed he never targeted anyone with deliberate cruelty, suggesting it may have been mere "playground banter".

"As Shoah survivors, we grasp the grave risk of hateful words – because we have witnessed where such words ultimately lead," stated the survivors in a letter.

"It is crucial to understand: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not teasing. Not among children. Not under any circumstances."

An Unequivocal Demand

The document asks blunt questions to the party leader: "Is it true you said ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your fellow pupils to antisemitic abuse?"

The Signatories

The group of 11 survivors includes individuals with harrowing personal stories from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her family.
• Simon Winston, who was held in a ghetto before fleeing in 1942 and spending the rest of the war in hiding.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau and later incarcerated at Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.

Other signatories 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 rejection of related testimony by more than two dozen or more alumni and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a high-ranking official.

After the story broke, more contemporaries have spoken out. Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now state they saw bigoted conduct by him.

One well-known testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who has stated that a teenage Farage would come near him and utter the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "gas them", at times including a prolonged hissing sound to imitate the sound of gas chambers.

A Broader Pattern

Additional alumni from ethnic minorities have additionally come forward with stories of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar stated he was branded a "Paki" and has rejected the notion that such actions were devoid of malice.
• Another individual with Asian roots portrayed him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The missive from survivors puts forth an ultimate question to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, do you mean that dozens of individuals are lying? If the words were spoken, now is the moment to take responsibility and say sorry."

"Those who hope to lead our country should not ever create division by race or religion. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is yours, Mr Farage."