Shoah Survivors Call On Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Antisemitic Remarks.
A coalition of Shoah survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage tell the truth and issue an apology for reported anti-Jewish abuse he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his youth.
The political party leader has previously stated he never insulted anyone with the aim to hurt, proposing it may have been mere "childish teasing".
"As Holocaust survivors, we grasp the profound danger of bigoted language – because we have seen where such words can lead," wrote the survivors in a letter.
"We must be unambiguous: expressing admiration for Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not among children. Not under any circumstances."
A Direct Question
The correspondence puts forth straightforward questions to the party leader: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you expose your classmates to bigoted harassment?"
The Survivors
The collective of eleven survivors includes individuals with devastating personal histories 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 fleeing in 1942 and spending the rest of the war as a fugitive.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.
The remaining survivors include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Growing Accounts
This public letter is a response to the characterisation of similar allegations by more than two dozen alumni and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a senior party figure.
After the story broke, more contemporaries have spoken out. 28 former pupils and teachers now assert they witnessed bigoted conduct by him.
One prominent account comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a young Farage would sidle up to him and utter the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "gas them", on occasion including a long hiss to imitate the sound of the gas chambers.
Additional Claims
More individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds have also come forward with stories of targeted insults.
- Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was referred to as a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the claim that such actions were without intent.
- Another student of Asian heritage characterised him as an "avowed bigot" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "ethnic harassment".
A Concluding Demand
The survivors' letter poses a final question to Farage: "By denying 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 apologise."
"Those who aspire to lead our country should never sow discord by race or religion. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never become acceptable. This moment is about moral responsibility. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."
