Holocaust Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Claimed Anti-Jewish Statements.
A coalition of Holocaust survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage admit the facts and apologise for alleged anti-Jewish abuse attributed to him toward Jewish schoolmates during his time at school.
The Reform UK leader has previously stated he never racially abused anyone with the aim to hurt, framing it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".
"As Holocaust survivors, we comprehend the profound danger of bigoted language – for we have seen where such words ultimately lead," declared the survivors in a letter.
"It is crucial to understand: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not banter. Not on a schoolyard. Not anywhere."
An Unequivocal Demand
The document poses straightforward questions to the party leader: "Is it true you said ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your fellow pupils to antisemitic abuse?"
The Survivors
The group of 11 survivors includes individuals with deeply traumatic personal experiences from the Nazi genocide.
- Hedi Argent, who saw the murder of 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
- Simon Winston, who was confined to a ghetto before fleeing in 1942 and spending the rest of the war concealed.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.
The remaining survivors include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Increasing Allegations
This intervention is a response to the dismissal of related accounts by more than two dozen or more former pupils and teachers as "complete fiction" by a senior party figure.
After the story broke, more contemporaries have spoken out. Nearly thirty former pupils and teachers now assert they observed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.
One prominent allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born award-winning director, who said that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was right" and "send them to the gas chambers", on occasion making a prolonged hissing sound to simulate the sound of gas chambers.
Additional Claims
Other former pupils from ethnic minorities have also spoken publicly with accounts of targeted insults.
- Cyrus Oshidar said he was referred to as a "Paki" and has dismissed the idea that such actions were without intent.
- Another individual with Asian roots characterised him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "ethnic harassment".
The Ultimate Question
The missive from survivors puts forth an ultimate dilemma to Farage: "By denying saying those words, is your position that 20 former classmates and teachers are lying? If you did say them, now is the time to admit your error and make amends."
"Those who hope to lead our country should never sow discord by background or belief. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about ethical duty. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."