British National Party leader Nick Griffin gave an interview to a small digital radio station run by JFS students last weekend — and told the interviewer that the Holocaust “needs to be left in the past”.
During the heated hour-long interview on Wizard Radio, which attracted 3,700 listeners, Mr Griffin said he supported Holocaust denier David Irving, whom he described as a “legitimate and well published historian”.
He also said that the Holocaust needed to be taught in “perspective” and “most people couldn’t give a damn about something that happened getting on 100 years ago. It’s something from the last century — my dad was in the RAF during the Second World War campaigning and helping men fight against Nazism — and really it needs to be left in the past. Frankly nobody is interested in it.”
Fifteen-year-old Gideon Benedyk, who conducted the live interview by phone, said he had been “nervous” but “at the same time, I couldn’t wait to take him on. I had to bear in mind that if I kept interrupting him, he could have hung up.”
The GCSE student from Bushey spent two weeks researching the BNP and Mr Griffin in preparation.
“It’s the biggest debate I’ve ever hosted,” said Gideon, who has now enrolled in a grassroots Israel advocacy programme, We Believe in Israel. “I had a lot of nervous energy but used it in a positive way. It was my last show, so I had to make it a good one.”
The presenter — who said Respect MP George Galloway had pulled out of an invitation to appear on the show — found Mr Griffin’s views on the Holocaust “particularly disgusting”.
When confronted about previous comments he had made questioning the Shoah, the BNP leader replied: “The whole problem of the Holocaust is that it’s used as a brutal stick to prevent proper, sensible and legitimate debate in our time about our issues — and it’s used to excuse the disposition of an entire people in Palestine.”
