Shoah Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Anti-Jewish Remarks.

A collective of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage be honest and issue an apology for alleged anti-Jewish abuse attributed to him toward Jewish students during his time at school.

The political party leader has said he never insulted anyone with deliberate cruelty, framing it may have been mere "childish teasing".

"Being Holocaust survivors, we comprehend the deadly peril of hateful words – because we have seen where such words ultimately lead," wrote the survivors in a letter.

"We must be unambiguous: lauding Hitler, mimicking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not on a schoolyard. Not ever."

A Direct Question

The correspondence asks straightforward questions to the party leader: "Is it true you said ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to bigoted harassment?"

The Survivors

The group of 11 survivors features individuals with devastating personal histories from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her family.
• Simon Winston, who was imprisoned in a ghetto before fleeing in 1942 and living through the rest of the war concealed.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau and later incarcerated at 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.

Growing Accounts

This intervention is a response to the rejection of related testimony by more than two dozen or more ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a deputy leader.

Following the publication, further individuals from that era have spoken out. 28 people connected to the school now claim they saw racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One well-known account comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish 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", sometimes including a long hiss to simulate the sound of gas chambers.

A Broader Pattern

Additional alumni from minority ethnic backgrounds have also shared experiences with accounts of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was referred to as a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the notion that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another pupil of Asian descent portrayed him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "racial bullying".

The Ultimate Question

The survivors' letter asks a concluding challenge to Farage: "By denying saying those words, are you claiming that dozens of individuals are fabricating their stories? If the words were spoken, now is the opportunity to take responsibility and make amends."

"Those who aspire to lead our country should never divide people by race or religion. Antisemitic hatred must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The path forward is yours, Mr Farage."