Shoah Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Reported Antisemitic Remarks.
A collective of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and apologise for reported anti-Jewish taunts attributed to him toward Jewish schoolmates during his youth.
The Reform UK leader has said he never racially abused anyone with deliberate cruelty, proposing it may have been mere "childish teasing".
"As Shoah survivors, we grasp the profound danger of bigoted language – because we have experienced firsthand where such words inevitably end," wrote the survivors in a open letter.
"Let us be clear: lauding Hitler, mimicking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not simple joking. Not on a schoolyard. Not anywhere."
An Unequivocal Demand
The correspondence asks straightforward questions to the public figure: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your fellow pupils to bigoted harassment?"
Those Who Signed
The collective of 11 survivors features individuals with deeply traumatic personal stories 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 fleeing in 1942 and spending the rest of the war in hiding.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was rescued.
Additional names on the letter include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Increasing Allegations
This intervention comes after the rejection of related testimony by more than several dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "complete fiction" by a senior party figure.
After the story broke, further individuals from that era have come forward. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now assert they observed bigoted conduct by him.
One notable account comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who has stated that a young Farage would approach him and say the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "gas them", at times adding a prolonged hissing sound to simulate the sound of poison gas.
Further Allegations
More individuals from ethnic minorities have also spoken publicly with stories of direct abuse.
- Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was referred to as a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the claim that such actions were devoid of malice.
- Another student of Asian heritage characterised him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "racial intimidation".
A Concluding Demand
The survivors' letter poses a final challenge to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are lying? If the words were spoken, now is the moment to admit your error and make amends."
"People who aspire to lead our country should under no circumstances create division by race or religion. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never become acceptable. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."