Shoah Survivors Call On Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Reported Anti-Jewish Comments.

A group of Shoah survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage be honest and express remorse for reported antisemitic comments attributed to him toward Jewish students during his time at school.

The Reform UK leader has previously stated he never insulted anyone with malicious intent, suggesting it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".

"Being Shoah survivors, we grasp the deadly peril of hateful words – because we have witnessed where such words inevitably end," wrote the survivors in a open letter.

"It is crucial to understand: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not simple joking. Not among children. Not under any circumstances."

A Direct Question

The document poses blunt questions to the party leader: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you expose your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"

Those Who Signed

The group of eleven survivors features individuals with harrowing personal experiences from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who was bereaved 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 as a fugitive.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.

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 rejection of corroborating accounts by more than two dozen or more ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a senior party figure.

Since the initial report, more contemporaries have spoken out. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now state they witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One well-known allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who said that a teenage Farage would approach him and say the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "gas them", on occasion including a hiss to imitate the sound of poison gas.

Further Allegations

Additional alumni from ethnic minorities have additionally spoken publicly with allegations of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed 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 portrayed him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "racial bullying".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The missive from survivors poses a final dilemma to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are not telling the truth? Should the allegations be true, now is the opportunity to acknowledge you were wrong and make amends."

"People who seek to govern our country should under no circumstances sow discord by race or religion. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is yours, Mr Farage."