Shoah Victims Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Alleged Antisemitic Comments.

A collective of Holocaust survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and express remorse for alleged anti-Jewish taunts he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his school days.

The Reform UK leader has said he never racially abused anyone with deliberate cruelty, framing it may have been mere "playground banter".

"As Holocaust survivors, we understand the deadly peril of words of hatred – for we have seen where such words inevitably end," wrote the survivors in a letter.

"It is crucial to understand: praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not teasing. Not on a schoolyard. Not anywhere."

An Unequivocal Demand

The document asks blunt questions to the party leader: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your peers to anti-Jewish taunts?"

Those Who Signed

The collective of 11 survivors includes individuals with deeply traumatic personal histories from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who was bereaved of 27 members of her 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 incarcerated at 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 is a response to the characterisation of similar allegations by more than two dozen or more ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a deputy leader.

Since the initial report, further individuals from that era have shared their stories. 28 ex-students and educators now assert they witnessed prejudiced actions by him.

One well-known allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born award-winning director, who said that a young Farage would sidle up to him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "gas them", on occasion including a prolonged hissing sound to mimic the sound of the gas chambers.

A Broader Pattern

Other former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have likewise come forward with accounts of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar stated he was called a "Paki" and has dismissed the claim that such actions were devoid of malice.
• Another individual with Asian roots characterised him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "racial intimidation".

The Ultimate Question

The missive from survivors asks a concluding question to Farage: "By denying saying those words, are you claiming that scores of witnesses are lying? If you did say them, now is the opportunity to take responsibility and say sorry."

"Those who seek to govern our country should never create division by ethnicity or faith. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about moral responsibility. The path forward is your own, Mr Farage."