Professor Julie Gottlieb (University of Sheffield, UK) will be in conversation with Ellen Ross, Ph. D., Professor Emerita of History and Women’s Studies at Ramapo College who written widely in British Women’s History. In the 1930s, Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), despite never having more than 50,000 members and never having one of their number elected to Parliament, sucked a great deal of oxygen out of the British political atmosphere. Within the BUF, women played a significant role, accounting for 25% of its membership and 28% of its meeting’s attendees. What is more, they served in all of its activities, including as Blackshirts and in the paramilitary Women’s Defence Corps. After 1938, women were also front and center as the BUF transformed itself into an anti-war movement that sought to blame Jews for pushing the UK and the other western democracies towards war with Nazi Germany. The event will be held under the auspices of The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.