Shoah Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Antisemitic Remarks.

A collective of Holocaust survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and apologise for alleged antisemitic taunts attributed to him toward Jewish pupils during his youth.

The Reform UK leader has previously stated he never targeted anyone with the aim to hurt, framing it may have been mere "playground banter".

"As Holocaust survivors, we understand the grave risk of words of hatred – for we have seen where such words can lead," stated the survivors in a letter.

"We must be unambiguous: expressing admiration for Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not banter. Not on a schoolyard. Not anywhere."

A Direct Question

The letter poses direct 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 subject your fellow pupils to bigoted harassment?"

The Survivors

The collective of 11 survivors contains individuals with devastating personal stories from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who was bereaved of 27 members of her family.
• Simon Winston, who was confined to a ghetto before escaping in 1942 and living through the rest of the war as a fugitive.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.

Additional names on the letter include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Mounting Testimony

This public letter comes after the dismissal of similar accounts by more than two dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a senior party figure.

Since the initial report, additional former pupils have spoken out. Nearly thirty former pupils and teachers now assert they observed prejudiced actions by him.

One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born award-winning director, who has stated that a teenage Farage would approach him and say the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "send them to the gas chambers", at times making a prolonged hissing sound to mimic the sound of the gas chambers.

Further Allegations

Additional alumni from diverse backgrounds have likewise shared experiences with stories of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was referred to as a "racial slur" and has rejected the claim that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another student of Asian heritage characterised him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Ultimate Question

The survivors' letter puts forth an ultimate challenge to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are fabricating their stories? If you did say them, now is the opportunity to take responsibility and apologise."

"Those who aspire to lead our country should not ever divide people by ethnicity or faith. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The path forward is yours, Mr Farage."