“He always said to me as a child: ‘You’ve got to keep a packed suitcase at the door Margaret, in case you ever have got to leave in a hurry’.”
Dame Margaret was speaking for the first time since the party dropped its investigation into her but continued a probe into MP Ian Austin for arguing with party chairman Ian Lavery over antisemitism.
She said: “When I heard about the disciplinary, my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear, that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain.”
But a Labour spokesperson said Dame Margaret’s feelings were “extreme and disconnected from reality.”
The spokesperson accused her of diminishing “the seriousness of the issue”.
Dame Margret said she felt bullied by the actions the party tried to take against her.
Despite being a secular Jew she said it was her religious background that “defines me”.
Speaking about antisemitism in the Labour Party, she said she had “never seen it like this
“I think it’s a bit scary. We’ve got the growth of populism, whether it’s Trump, whether it’s Boris Johnson, and now whether it’s the cult of Corbynism which allows these attitudes to emerge. That’s what scares me.
“I wasn’t alive in the 1930s… but it sort of makes you feel that if you don’t stand up against it then what are you allowing to occur?
“And for me, fighting racism has always been at the heart of everything I’ve done.”
Asked about her confrontation with Mr Corbyn, she said: “I stand by what I said - until he shows me and everybody else that we were completely wrong.”
A spokesperson for Labour said: “Jeremy is determined to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party, so Jewish people feel it is a warm and welcoming home.
“The comparison of the Labour Party’s disciplinary process with Nazi Germany is so extreme and disconnected from reality, it diminishes the seriousness of the issue of antisemitism.
“We all need to work together to build support and confidence in the Labour Party among Jewish communities in Britain.”
During the interview Dame Margaret also responded to Unite union leader Len McCluskey’s claim that the row over antisemitism could see Labour descend into a “vortex of McCarthyism”.
She said: “I would put it to Len McCluskey that my receiving a letter saying they’re starting disciplinary proceedings 11 hours after I had a perfectly legitimate conversation with the leader of the Labour Party in the lobby of the House of Commons smelt to me of McCarthyism against people who oppose Corbyn and a purge against those people.”
