Shoah Victims Demand Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Reported Antisemitic Remarks.
A group of Holocaust survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage be honest and issue an apology for reported anti-Jewish taunts he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his youth.
The political party leader has claimed he never targeted anyone with the aim to hurt, suggesting it may have been mere "childish teasing".
"As Shoah survivors, we grasp the profound danger of bigoted language – for we have witnessed where such words can lead," wrote the survivors in a missive.
"We must be unambiguous: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not teasing. Not among children. Not anywhere."
A Pointed Inquiry
The document poses 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 fellow pupils to antisemitic abuse?"
The Signatories
The collective of eleven survivors includes individuals with devastating personal histories 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 breaking out 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 liberated.
Other signatories include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Increasing Allegations
This public letter is a response to the dismissal of corroborating testimony by more than two dozen or more alumni and teachers as "complete fiction" by a deputy leader.
Following the publication, further individuals from that era have come forward. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now assert they observed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.
One prominent testimony 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 adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of gas chambers.
Additional Claims
More individuals from diverse backgrounds have likewise come forward with stories of direct abuse.
- Cyrus Oshidar stated he was referred to as a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the notion that such actions were devoid of malice.
- Another individual with Asian roots described him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "racial intimidation".
The Survivors' Final Appeal
The missive from survivors asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "If you deny saying those words, are you claiming that 20 former classmates and teachers are fabricating their stories? Should the allegations be true, now is the moment to admit your error and apologise."
"Individuals who seek to govern our country should never sow discord by race or religion. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about personal accountability. The choice is your own, Mr Farage."
