Holocaust survivors demand answers from UK Reform leader over Nazi salutes, antisemitic abuse

Additional accusations have since emerged from former students of Asian and minority backgrounds.

By Aaron Sull, Jewish Breaking News

A group of Holocaust survivors is demanding answers from Reform UK leader Nigel Farage over allegations that he taunted Jewish classmates as a schoolboy at Dulwich College with phrases like “Hitler was right” and “gas them.”

In an open letter, the 11 survivors—several of whom endured ghettos, death camps, or fled Nazi persecution—warned that dismissing such language as harmless “playground banter” trivializes the dangers they witnessed firsthand.

“Praising Hitler, mocking gas chambers, or hurling racist abuse is not banter. Not in a playground. Not anywhere,” they wrote. “When allegations arise about invoking Nazi attitudes toward Jewish children, the responsible response is honesty, reflection, and commitment to truth.”

The intervention follows a wave of former pupils and teachers who have come forward in recent weeks, recounting repeated antisemitic slurs, Nazi salutes, and chants allegedly made by Farage during the 1970s at the elite South London school.

Several contemporaries—including BAFTA- and Emmy-winning director Peter Ettedgui—say Farage approached Jewish students to hiss “gas them” or whisper “Hitler was right,” sometimes imitating the sound of gas chambers.

Others recall him chanting “BM, BM, we are British Nazi men” or leading racist songs within the school’s cadet force.

Additional accusations have since emerged from former students of Asian and minority backgrounds who say Farage routinely used racial slurs and invoked far-right figures like Enoch Powell to intimidate them.

One recalled him abusing classmates “habitually,” describing his character as an “openly racist” and widely known for that behavior at the time.”

Farage has rejected the allegations, insisting he never made racist remarks in a “malicious or nasty way.”

His deputy, Richard Tice, has gone further, dismissing the accounts of more than two dozen witnesses as “made-up twaddle” and accusing critics of pursuing a political agenda.

Reform UK has also suggested that the Guardian’s investigation—which first reported the testimonies—is part of a broader effort to discredit the party as it leads in national polls.

But survivors pushed back forcefully, saying their own firsthand experience with the gas chambers gives them little patience for evasion.

If Farage truly never used those slurs, they argued, he should say so plainly instead of suggesting that more than 20 contemporaries fabricated their memories.

“If you did say these words, now is the time to acknowledge you were wrong and apologize,” they wrote.

“Those who hope to lead our country should never divide people by race or religion. Antisemitic hatred must never be normalized. This moment is about moral responsibility. The choice is yours, Mr. Farage.”