Shoah Victims Urge Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Claimed Anti-Jewish Remarks.

A coalition of Holocaust survivors has publicly demanded that Nigel Farage be honest and apologise for reported antisemitic taunts he is said to have made toward Jewish schoolmates during his youth.

The political party leader has previously stated he never targeted anyone with deliberate cruelty, framing it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".

"Being Shoah survivors, we understand the grave risk of bigoted language – because we have witnessed where such words ultimately lead," declared the survivors in a letter.

"We must be unambiguous: expressing admiration for Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not banter. Not among children. Not under any circumstances."

An Unequivocal Demand

The letter puts forth direct questions to the party leader: "Did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ while mimicking gas chambers? Did you subject your classmates to anti-Jewish taunts?"

The Signatories

The collective of eleven survivors contains individuals with deeply traumatic personal histories from the Nazi genocide.

• Hedi Argent, who was bereaved of 27 members of her 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 freed.

The remaining survivors include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Increasing Allegations

This public letter comes after the dismissal of related accounts by more than two dozen former pupils and teachers as "made-up twaddle" by a high-ranking official.

Following the publication, more contemporaries have shared their stories. Nearly thirty former pupils and teachers now assert they saw racist or antisemitic behaviour by him.

One well-known testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish award-winning director, who has stated that a young Farage would sidle up to him and utter the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "send them to the gas chambers", on occasion including a hiss to mimic the sound of poison gas.

Further Allegations

More individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds have also spoken publicly with accounts of personal harassment.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was called a "Paki" and has labelled as rubbish the idea that such actions were without intent.
• Another individual with Asian roots characterised him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was correct" as a form of "ethnic harassment".

The Ultimate Question

The survivors' letter poses a final question to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, do you mean that dozens of individuals are fabricating their stories? If you did say them, now is the moment to acknowledge you were wrong and apologise."

"Those who seek to govern our country should not ever sow discord by race or religion. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about moral responsibility. The choice is yours, Mr Farage."