Holocaust Survivors Urge Nigel Farage to Make Amends Over Alleged Anti-Jewish Comments.

A collective of Holocaust survivors has called for that Nigel Farage be honest and apologise for reported anti-Jewish comments he reportedly directed toward Jewish pupils during his youth.

The political party leader has said he never insulted anyone with the aim to hurt, proposing it may have been mere "schoolyard talk".

"As Shoah survivors, we understand the grave risk of bigoted language – for we have experienced firsthand where such words can lead," declared the survivors in a open letter.

"Let us be clear: praising Hitler, jeering at gas chambers, or shouting racist insults is not teasing. Not on a schoolyard. Not under any circumstances."

A Direct Question

The correspondence puts forth direct questions to the political figure: "Are the claims accurate that you stated ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ and mimicked gas chambers? Did you subject your peers to anti-Jewish taunts?"

The Signatories

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

• Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her family.
• Simon Winston, who was held in 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 moved to Bergen-Belsen, where she was liberated.

Additional names on the letter include Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.

Mounting Testimony

This action is a response to the rejection of related accounts by more than several dozen ex-schoolmates and teachers as "fabricated nonsense" by a high-ranking official.

Following the publication, more contemporaries have shared their stories. 28 former pupils and teachers now assert they observed prejudiced actions by him.

One prominent testimony comes from Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish-born Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who said that a young Farage would come near him and say the phrases "Hitler had the correct idea" and "send them to the gas chambers", sometimes adding a prolonged hissing sound to simulate the sound of the gas chambers.

Further Allegations

More individuals from diverse backgrounds have additionally come forward with accounts of direct abuse.

• Cyrus Oshidar claimed he was called a "racial slur" and has rejected the idea that such actions were devoid of malice.
• Another student of Asian heritage portrayed him as an "open racist" who would use the phrase "Enoch Powell had a point" as a form of "racial bullying".

The Survivors' Final Appeal

The final appeal poses a final challenge to Farage: "Should you continue to deny saying those words, is your position that scores of witnesses are fabricating their stories? Should the allegations be true, now is the time to acknowledge you were wrong and say sorry."

"People who seek to govern our country should under no circumstances divide people by ethnicity or faith. Antisemitic hatred must always be confronted. This moment is about ethical duty. The path forward is yours, Mr Farage."