Shoah Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Anti-Jewish Remarks.
A collective of Holocaust survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage be honest and apologise for alleged antisemitic comments attributed to him toward Jewish students during his youth.
The Reform UK leader has said he never racially abused anyone with deliberate cruelty, suggesting it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".
"As Shoah survivors, we comprehend the deadly peril of hateful words – for we have experienced firsthand where such words can lead," declared the survivors in a missive.
"It is crucial to understand: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not simple joking. Not among children. Not ever."
An Unequivocal Demand
The correspondence asks direct questions to the public figure: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you expose your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"
The Signatories
The group of 11 survivors features individuals with devastating personal experiences from the Nazi genocide.
- Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
- Simon Winston, who was held in a ghetto before escaping in 1942 and living through the rest of the war in hiding.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.
The remaining survivors include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Growing Accounts
This public letter is a response to the dismissal of similar accounts by more than two dozen alumni and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a high-ranking official.
After the story broke, additional former pupils have shared their stories. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now assert they saw bigoted conduct by him.
One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and utter the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes adding a hiss to mimic the sound of gas chambers.
A Broader Pattern
Other former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have likewise spoken publicly with stories of personal harassment.
- Cyrus Oshidar said he was referred to as a "Paki" and has rejected the idea that such actions were not meant to hurt.
- Another student of Asian heritage described him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "racial bullying".
A Concluding Demand
The survivors' letter asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, do you mean that scores of witnesses are fabricating their stories? If you did say them, now is the moment to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."
"Individuals who seek to govern our country should not ever create division by race or religion. Hatred of Jews must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The decision is yours, Mr Farage."
