Roald Dahl’s family makes official apology for anti-Semitic comments
The family of Roald Dahl has apologised for the late author’s “prejudiced” anti-Semitic comments.
Dahl is considered “one of the world’s most imaginative, successful and loved storytellers” – and wrote many children’s classics including “Matilda”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “James and the Giant Peach”.
While he died in 1990 at the age of 74, his family has finally acknowledged anti-Semitic comments made more than two decades ago.
In a post on Dahl’s website, the family wrote they wanted to “deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements.”
“Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations.
“We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”
In an interview with the New Statesman magazine in 1983, the author said: “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews.”
“Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason,” Dahl added.
He then made another comment in 1990, where he told The Independent: “I’m certainly anti-Israeli and I’ve become anti-Semitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism.”