Shoah Survivors Demand Nigel Farage to Say Sorry Over Reported Antisemitic Remarks.
A group of Shoah survivors has called for that Nigel Farage tell the truth and express remorse for reported anti-Jewish taunts attributed to him toward Jewish students during his youth.
The political party leader has claimed he never targeted anyone with deliberate cruelty, framing it may have been mere "playground banter".
"As Shoah survivors, we grasp the profound danger of hateful words – because we have seen where such words inevitably end," stated the survivors in a open letter.
"Let us be clear: praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not in a playground. Not ever."
An Unequivocal Demand
The correspondence poses direct questions to the public figure: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ and mimicked gas chambers? Did you subject your peers to bigoted harassment?"
The Survivors
The collective of eleven survivors includes individuals with deeply traumatic personal histories from the Holocaust.
- 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 in hiding.
- Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and later moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was freed.
Additional names on the letter 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 corroborating allegations by more than two dozen alumni and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a senior party figure.
Following the publication, further individuals from that era have shared their stories. 28 ex-students and educators now state they witnessed prejudiced actions by him.
One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born award-winning director, who has stated that a teenage Farage would come near him and repeat the phrases "Hitler was correct" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes including a hiss to imitate the sound of poison gas.
Additional Claims
Other former pupils from ethnic minorities have also shared experiences with stories of direct abuse.
- Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was branded a "racial slur" and has labelled as rubbish the notion that such actions were not meant to hurt.
- Another individual with Asian roots described him as an "blatant racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell was right" as a form of "ethnic harassment".
The Survivors' Final Appeal
The missive from survivors puts forth an ultimate challenge to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, do you mean that dozens of individuals are not telling the truth? Should the allegations be true, now is the opportunity to take responsibility and apologise."
"People who seek to govern our country should never create division by ethnicity or faith. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about ethical duty. The decision is your own, Mr Farage."
