ABSTRACT
Between 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War 20,000 Jewish women escaped from Nazi Europe to become refugee domestics in Britain. At the same time some ‘native’ domestic servants were attracted to the British Fascist movement. Both groups of women have been ignored by historians. This article suggests that this is a serious omission which has led to an incomplete view of the refugee and Fascist movements in Britain. Indeed consideration of class and gender issues sheds valuable light both on the relative failure of Fascism in Britain and British responses to the Jewish refugee crisis in the 1930s.
