Holocaust Victims Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Antisemitic Comments.

A coalition of Shoah survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage be honest and express remorse for reported antisemitic comments he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his time at school.

The Reform UK leader has previously stated he never insulted anyone with deliberate cruelty, proposing it may have been mere "playground banter".

"Being Holocaust survivors, we understand the profound danger of bigoted language – because we have witnessed where such words can lead," stated the survivors in a missive.

"We must be unambiguous: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or directing racial slurs is not simple joking. Not in a playground. Not ever."

An Unequivocal Demand

The correspondence poses direct questions to the political figure: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"

Those Who Signed

The collective of 11 survivors contains individuals with harrowing personal experiences from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who was bereaved of 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
• Simon Winston, who was imprisoned in 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 transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.

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 public letter comes after the rejection of related testimony by more than two dozen alumni and teachers as "complete fiction" by a deputy leader.

Since the initial report, further individuals from that era have spoken out. Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now claim they witnessed 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 come near him and utter the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes including a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas chambers.

Additional Claims

Other former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have additionally spoken publicly with allegations of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was called a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the notion that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another student of Asian heritage characterised him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Ultimate Question

The survivors' letter asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, is your position that dozens of individuals are not telling the truth? If you did say them, now is the time to take responsibility and make amends."

"Individuals who seek to govern our country should not ever create division by background or belief. Antisemitic hatred must never be normalised. This moment is about moral responsibility. The choice is your own, Mr Farage."