Roald Dahl's family sorry for his anti-Semitic remarks that Hitler had 'reason' for Holocaust
Road Dahl was a self-described antisemite and refused to say sorry for his comments before he died 30 years ago
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Road Dahl's family has issued an apology for his anti-Semitic remarks.
The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory author was a self-described antisemite and refused to say sorry for his comments before he died 30 years ago.
In an interview with the New Statesman in 1983, he 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.
"I mean, there's always a reason why anti-anything crops up anywhere."
He added: "Even a stinker like Hitler didn't just pick on them for no reason."
Now Dahl's family have posted a statement apologising for his comments on his website.
It's unclear when the apology was posted, but it was spotted by the Sunday Times.
Their statement says: "The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company 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."
The Roald Dahl Story Company later added: "Apologising for the words of a much-loved grandparent is a challenging thing to do, but made more difficult when the words are so hurtful to an entire community.
"We loved Roald, but we passionately disagree with his anti-Semitic comments. This is why we chose to apologise on our website."
Dahl also acknowleged his antisemitism in an article in the Independent in 1990.
He said: "I'm certainly anti-Israeli, and I've become antisemitic in as much as that you get a Jewish person in another country like England strongly supporting Zionism. I think they should see both sides.
"It's the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren't any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media – jolly clever thing to do – that's why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel."
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