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Lecture

Trudy Gold
The Strange Case of Diana Mitford and Oswald Mosley

Tuesday 8.08.2023

Summary

This presentation will revisit the Mitford family, focusing on sisters Jessica and Diana.

Jessica adopted Communism and eloped with Churchill’s nephew. After his death, she married a civil rights lawyer and became a best selling writer.

Diana married into the wealthy Guinness family. She abandoned all for her obsession with the notorious Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. They eventually married in Germany at the home of Magda and Joseph Goebbels. Part 2 of 2.

Trudy Gold

An image of Trudy Gold

Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.

Look, Jessica, it’s a fascinating concept. I really, I take Wendy’s point, we have to take the history and turn it over to psychology. They were all case studies. They really were. They had very, very strange parents, that’s for sure. They were totally privileged. They lived a rarefied life. But Jessica, she finished up marrying a New York Jew from a very warm Hungarian background.

As a writer, yes. But Jessica was also a good writer. So what I’m saying to you, Lorna, read, I’m not suggesting you read Diana. I really, there’s a very, very good biography of Unity by David Pryce-Jones. A very good, there’s loads of biographies on the Mitfords. I suggest you have a look at them if you are interested.