Shoah Survivors Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Alleged Antisemitic Statements.

A coalition of Holocaust survivors has called for that Nigel Farage be honest and express remorse for alleged anti-Jewish taunts he reportedly directed toward Jewish students during his time at school.

The political party leader has said he never insulted anyone with the aim to hurt, suggesting it may have been mere "playground banter".

"Being Shoah survivors, we comprehend the profound danger of words of hatred – because we have witnessed where such words ultimately lead," declared the survivors in a letter.

"Let us be clear: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not simple joking. Not on a schoolyard. Not ever."

A Pointed Inquiry

The document poses direct questions to the party leader: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you target your peers to bigoted harassment?"

The Survivors

The collective of eleven survivors includes individuals with harrowing personal histories from the Nazi genocide.

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

Other signatories include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Growing Accounts

This public letter follows the dismissal of similar allegations by more than several dozen former pupils and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a deputy leader.

After the story broke, more contemporaries have come forward. Nearly thirty people connected to the school now claim they saw racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One well-known allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and say the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "gas them", sometimes including a hiss to mimic the sound of gas chambers.

Additional Claims

Other former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have likewise spoken publicly with accounts of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar said he was called a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the notion that such actions were not meant to hurt.
• Another pupil of Asian descent described him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The final appeal asks a concluding challenge to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, are you claiming that dozens of individuals are lying? If the words were spoken, now is the opportunity to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."

"Individuals who seek to govern our country should never sow discord by ethnicity or faith. Antisemitic hatred must never be normalised. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is yours, Mr Farage."