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

A coalition of Holocaust survivors has called for that Nigel Farage be honest and express remorse for alleged anti-Jewish taunts he reportedly directed toward Jewish schoolmates during his youth.

The Reform UK leader has said he never insulted anyone with the aim to hurt, proposing it may have been mere "childish teasing".

"Being Holocaust survivors, we understand the deadly peril of words of hatred – for we have seen where such words ultimately lead," wrote the survivors in a letter.

"It is crucial to understand: lauding Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or directing racial slurs is not banter. Not in a playground. Not ever."

An Unequivocal Demand

The correspondence puts forth blunt 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 anti-Jewish taunts?"

The Survivors

The collective of 11 survivors features individuals with deeply traumatic personal stories from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her immediate and extended 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 sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved 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.

Mounting Testimony

This public letter follows the characterisation of related allegations by more than two dozen or more ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a high-ranking official.

After the story broke, more contemporaries have spoken out. Nearly thirty people connected to the school now assert they witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

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

Additional Claims

Other former pupils from diverse backgrounds have additionally shared experiences with stories of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was called a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the claim that such actions were devoid of malice.
• Another pupil of Asian descent characterised him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "racial intimidation".

A Concluding Demand

The survivors' letter asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "By denying saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are lying? If you did say them, now is the moment to acknowledge you were wrong and say sorry."

"People who hope to lead our country should not ever divide people by ethnicity or faith. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about ethical duty. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."