Holocaust Victims Call On Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Alleged Anti-Jewish Remarks.

A coalition of Shoah survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage tell the truth and express remorse for reported antisemitic abuse attributed to him toward Jewish pupils during his youth.

The Reform UK leader has claimed he never targeted anyone with the aim to hurt, framing it may have been mere "playground banter".

"Being Shoah survivors, we grasp the grave risk of bigoted language – for we have experienced firsthand where such words ultimately lead," declared the survivors in a letter.

"It is crucial to understand: lauding Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not simple joking. Not among children. Not anywhere."

A Direct Question

The document puts forth blunt questions to the public figure: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ accompanied by mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to antisemitic abuse?"

The Survivors

The collective of 11 survivors contains individuals with devastating personal histories from the Holocaust.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her immediate and extended family.
• Simon Winston, who was confined to a ghetto before fleeing in 1942 and living through the rest of the war concealed.
• Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where she was rescued.

Additional names on the letter 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 characterisation of similar accounts by more than two dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a high-ranking official.

After the story broke, further individuals from that era have come forward. Nearly thirty ex-students and educators now assert they saw bigoted conduct by him.

One notable allegation comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born award-winning director, who has stated that a young Farage would sidle up to him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was right" and "gas them", on occasion making a prolonged hissing sound to imitate the sound of the gas chambers.

Additional Claims

Additional alumni from minority ethnic backgrounds have additionally spoken publicly with allegations of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar said he was called a "racial slur" and has rejected the notion that such actions were devoid of malice.
• Another pupil of Asian descent characterised him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "racial bullying".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The final appeal asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "By denying saying those words, do you mean that scores of witnesses are lying? If you did say them, now is the time to take responsibility and apologise."

"Those who seek to govern our country should never divide people by ethnicity or faith. Anti-Jewish bigotry must never be normalised. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."