A survivor of both the Bergen Belsen concentration camp and the Munich Olympic massacre has described Jeremy Corbyn as "an antisemite" and said that he hopes the Labour leader will “disappear from the political scene.”
In an interview with the Telegraph, Professor Shaul Ladany described himself as being “really upset” when he saw the photographs of Jeremy Corbyn at a wreath laying ceremony in Tunisia for members of the Black September terror group who planned and executed the attack on his Israeli team mates.
“Going there and laying a wreath is a stand,” Prof Ladany said.
“It is saying, ‘look I am in favour of it, I admire it’. That is his belief, but he knows at present he cannot fully express himself totally openly because he might lose some of his voters.”
Prof Ladany, 82, spent six months as a child in Bergen Belsen, the Nazi concentration camp in which over fifty thousand people died during World War Two, including Anne Frank. He lost 28 members of his family in the Holocaust.
After the war, he moved to Israel, where he became a champion long-distance walker, setting world records including one, for race-walking 50 miles, which still stands today.
In 1972, he was the oldest athlete in Israel’s Olympic squad. On the night of September 5, Palestinian terrorists attacked the Israeli compound, entering apartments one and three, but skipping apartment two, where the walker and other Israeli olympians were. They managed to escape via the back door of their apartment. For the next few days, they would watch in horror as their teammates were held hostage before being killed.
Prof Ladany, who lives in Beersheba, was unequivocal in his view of the Labour leader.
“I don’t know [Corbyn] personally… but from what I have read and heard I have no doubt that he is an antisemite”, he said.
The interview comes after six members of Britain’s 1972 Olympic squad condemned Mr Corbyn’s attendance at the ceremony in Tunis.
Those criticising the Labour leader included David Bedford, the former 10,000 metre world record holder, and Alan Minter, former middleweight boxing champion. Previously a Labour voter, Mr Bedford told the Telegraph he would find it “impossible” to support Mr Corbyn, while Mr Minter said Mr Corbyn should have been “honouring those who died... not the people who killed them”.
