Holocaust
survivors call on Nigel Farage to apologise over alleged antisemitic comments
Exclusive:
Group’s open letter says Reform UK leader must take responsibility for
behaviour as a schoolboy
Henry
Dyer and Daniel Boffey
Fri 5 Dec
2025 07.00 CET
A group
of Holocaust survivors have demanded Nigel Farage tell the truth and apologise
for the antisemitic comments that fellow pupils of Dulwich College allege he
made toward Jewish pupils.
The
Reform UK leader has said he never racially abused anyone with intent but may
have engaged in “banter in a playground”.
But in a
letter to Farage seen by the Guardian, the 11 survivors said: “As Holocaust
survivors, we understand the danger of hateful words – because we have seen
where such words lead.
“Let us
be clear: praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not
banter. Not in a playground. Not anywhere.
“When
allegations arise about invoking Nazi attitudes toward Jewish children, the
responsible response is honesty, reflection, and commitment to truth.
“So we
ask you: did you say ‘Hitler was right’ and ‘gas them,’ mimicking gas chambers?
Did you subject your classmates to antisemitic abuse?”
The
survivors include Hedi Argent, who lost 27 members of her family in the
Holocaust. Another member of the group, Simon Winston, was held in a ghetto
before escaping in September 1942 and spending the rest of the war in hiding.
Another
signatory is Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where
she spent nearly a year. In October 1944, she was moved to Bergen-Belsen, where
she was liberated by the British in April 1945.
The eight
others are Janine Webber, Edith Jayne, Helen Aronson, Ruth Barnett, John
Fieldsend, Susan Pollack, Hanneke Dye and Agnes Kaposi.
Their
intervention follows comments made by Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice,
to describe the testimony of more than two dozen people as “made-up twaddle”.
Since the
Guardian published its investigation about Farage two weeks ago, more
contemporaries have come forward. Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers say
they witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College in
south London.
Peter
Ettedgui, a Bafta and Emmy-winning director, who is Jewish, has said that a
teenage Farage would sidle up to him and say “Hitler was right” and “gas them”,
sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas chambers.
Eight
other contemporaries have offered accounts to corroborate the claim that Farage
targeted Ettedgui at school. Most of them have done so on the record. Only one
is active in party politics, as the chair of the Liberal Democrats in
Salisbury.
Among the
new schoolmates to come forward since the first story by the Guardian is Nick
Hearn. A banker who described himself as a “conservative with a small c’, he
said he had regularly seen Ettedgui being abused by the Reform leader, and
called on him to “come clean”.
Tice told
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Ettedgui was a liar and the former pupils
coming forward had a “political axe to grind”.
The
survivors have asked Farage whether – since he has denied abusing Ettedgui – he
was saying that Ettedgui and the others were lying.
They
said: “If you deny saying those words, are you saying that 20 former classmates
and teachers are lying? If you did say them, now is the time to acknowledge you
were wrong, and apologise.
“Those
who hope to lead our country should never divide people by race or religion.
Antisemitic hatred must never be normalised. This moment is about moral
responsibility. The choice is yours, Mr Farage.”
Other
former pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds have said Farage directly abused
them. They include Cyrus Oshidar, who said Farage would call him a “Paki” and
has described as “rubbish” the claim that Farage did not act with intent to
hurt.
Another
student of Asian heritage, who was in the same year as Farage, described him as
an open racist who would say “Enoch Powell was right” to him as a form of
“racial intimidation”.
Reform UK
has been approached for comment.
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