Shoah Survivors Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Claimed Antisemitic Remarks.

A coalition of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and express remorse for alleged antisemitic taunts attributed to him toward Jewish students during his school days.

The Reform UK leader has previously stated he never insulted anyone with malicious intent, proposing it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".

"Being Shoah survivors, we understand the deadly peril of words of hatred – because we have witnessed where such words inevitably end," wrote the survivors in a letter.

"It is crucial to understand: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not on a schoolyard. Not under any circumstances."

A Pointed Inquiry

The correspondence poses direct questions to the party leader: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"

The Survivors

The group of eleven survivors features individuals with harrowing personal histories from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
• Simon Winston, who was imprisoned in a ghetto before escaping in 1942 and spending the rest of the war in hiding.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was rescued.

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 follows the characterisation of similar accounts by more than several dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a high-ranking official.

Following the publication, more contemporaries have come forward. 28 people connected to the school now claim they observed bigoted conduct by him.

One well-known account comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who said that a young Farage would come near him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was right" and "gas them", on occasion adding a prolonged hissing sound to imitate the sound of the gas chambers.

Further Allegations

Other former pupils from ethnic minorities have additionally shared experiences with stories of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was called a "Paki" and has rejected the claim that such actions were without intent.
• Another pupil of Asian descent characterised him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "racial bullying".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The missive from survivors poses a final dilemma to Farage: "By denying saying those words, do you mean that dozens of individuals are not telling the truth? If you did say them, now is the time to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."

"People who aspire to lead our country should under no circumstances sow discord by ethnicity or faith. Hatred of Jews must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."