Holocaust Victims Demand Nigel Farage to Apologise Over Reported Antisemitic Comments.

A collective of Shoah survivors has insisted that Nigel Farage admit the facts and apologise for alleged antisemitic taunts he is said to have made toward Jewish pupils during his youth.

The political party leader has said he never targeted anyone with malicious intent, proposing it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".

"Being Holocaust survivors, we understand the profound danger of hateful words – for we have seen where such words inevitably end," declared the survivors in a missive.

"Let us be clear: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not teasing. Not on a schoolyard. Not ever."

An Unequivocal Demand

The document poses blunt questions to the party leader: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ and mimicked gas chambers? Did you subject your fellow pupils to antisemitic abuse?"

Those Who Signed

The collective of 11 survivors contains individuals with devastating personal experiences from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her 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 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.

Mounting Testimony

This public letter follows the dismissal of similar testimony by more than two dozen or more former pupils and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a senior party figure.

Following the publication, additional former pupils have come forward. 28 people connected to the school now state they observed prejudiced actions by him.

One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who recalls that a teenage Farage would sidle up to him and utter the phrases "Hitler was right" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes making a hiss to mimic the sound of poison gas.

Additional Claims

Other former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have likewise come forward with accounts of targeted insults.

• Cyrus Oshidar stated he was branded a "racial slur" and has dismissed the claim that such actions were without intent.
• Another pupil of Asian descent described 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 missive from survivors asks a concluding dilemma to Farage: "By denying saying those words, do you mean that 20 former classmates and teachers are lying? Should the allegations be true, now is the opportunity to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."

"People who seek to govern our country should under no circumstances sow discord by background or belief. Antisemitic hatred must never become acceptable. This moment is about ethical duty. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."