Holocaust Victims Urge Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Anti-Jewish Statements.
A group of Holocaust survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage be honest and apologise for alleged antisemitic taunts he reportedly directed toward Jewish schoolmates during his school days.
The political party leader has claimed he never insulted anyone with malicious intent, proposing it may have been mere "playground banter".
"As Holocaust survivors, we comprehend the deadly peril of bigoted language – because we have witnessed where such words can lead," wrote the survivors in a missive.
"Let us be clear: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not banter. Not among children. Not ever."
An Unequivocal Demand
The correspondence puts forth direct questions to the party leader: "Is it true you said ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your classmates to bigoted harassment?"
The Signatories
The collective of eleven survivors features individuals with harrowing personal experiences from the Nazi genocide.
- Hedi Argent, who was bereaved of 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
- Simon Winston, who was imprisoned in a ghetto before breaking out in 1942 and spending the rest of the war as a fugitive.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.
Other signatories include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Mounting Testimony
This public letter follows the rejection of corroborating allegations by more than two dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "complete fiction" by a deputy leader.
After the story broke, further individuals from that era have come forward. Twenty-eight people connected to the school now claim they observed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.
One notable allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who has stated that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was right" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes making a long hiss to mimic the sound of poison gas.
A Broader Pattern
More individuals from ethnic minorities have additionally come forward with allegations of targeted insults.
- Cyrus Oshidar said he was branded a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the claim that such actions were without intent.
- Another pupil of Asian descent described him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "ethnic harassment".
A Concluding Demand
The survivors' letter asks a concluding challenge to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are not telling the truth? If you did say them, now is the time to take responsibility and make amends."
"Individuals who hope to lead our country should never divide people by background or belief. Hatred of Jews must always be confronted. This moment is about personal accountability. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."
