Holocaust Survivors Demand Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Antisemitic Comments.

A coalition of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and issue an apology for alleged antisemitic abuse attributed to him toward Jewish students during his youth.

The Reform UK leader has claimed he never racially abused anyone with deliberate cruelty, framing it may have been mere "childish teasing".

"Being Holocaust survivors, we comprehend the grave risk of bigoted language – for we have experienced firsthand where such words can lead," declared the survivors in a missive.

"It is crucial to understand: expressing admiration for Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not teasing. Not among children. Not ever."

An Unequivocal Demand

The correspondence puts forth blunt questions to the political figure: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your peers to anti-Jewish taunts?"

The Signatories

The group of 11 survivors contains individuals with deeply traumatic personal histories from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 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 in hiding.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later incarcerated at Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.

The remaining survivors include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Increasing Allegations

This public letter comes after the dismissal of corroborating accounts by more than two dozen or more alumni and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a high-ranking official.

After the story broke, more contemporaries have spoken out. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now claim they observed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who has stated that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and utter the phrases "Hitler was right" and "send them to the gas chambers", at times making a prolonged hissing sound to imitate the sound of the gas chambers.

A Broader Pattern

Other former pupils from ethnic minorities have additionally come forward with accounts of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar stated he was referred to as a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the idea that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another student of Asian heritage portrayed him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "racial intimidation".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The missive from survivors puts forth an ultimate challenge to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, is your position that 20 former classmates and teachers are fabricating their stories? Should the allegations be true, now is the opportunity to acknowledge you were wrong and say sorry."

"People who aspire to lead our country should not ever divide people by race or religion. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The choice is your own, Mr Farage."