Shoah Victims Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Anti-Jewish Statements.

A group of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and apologise for reported antisemitic abuse attributed to him toward Jewish pupils during his youth.

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

"As Holocaust survivors, we comprehend the grave risk of words of hatred – because we have witnessed where such words inevitably end," wrote the survivors in a letter.

"We must be unambiguous: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or directing racial slurs is not simple joking. Not on a schoolyard. Not under any circumstances."

A Direct Question

The document asks straightforward questions to the party leader: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ and mimicked gas chambers? Did you target your fellow pupils to anti-Jewish taunts?"

Those Who Signed

The group of eleven survivors includes individuals with deeply traumatic personal histories from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her family.
• Simon Winston, who was confined to a ghetto before breaking out in 1942 and spending the rest of the war concealed.
• 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 comes after the characterisation of similar allegations by more than two dozen former pupils and teachers as "complete fiction" by a high-ranking official.

Since the initial report, additional former pupils have spoken out. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now state they witnessed bigoted conduct by him.

One well-known allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a teenage Farage would come near him and say the phrases "Hitler was right" and "send them to the gas chambers", at times adding a long hiss to mimic the sound of the gas chambers.

Further Allegations

Other former pupils from ethnic minorities have likewise spoken publicly with allegations of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar said he was called a "racial slur" and has dismissed the idea that such actions were without intent.
• Another student of Asian heritage portrayed him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

A Concluding Demand

The survivors' letter poses a final question to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, do you mean that 20 former classmates and teachers are fabricating their stories? If you did say them, now is the moment to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."

"Those who aspire to lead our country should under no circumstances create division by background or belief. Hatred of Jews must never be normalised. This moment is about moral responsibility. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."