Born Jewish

Eminent Marxist intellectual recounts class struggles in Nazi-torn Belgium

Marcel Liebman was one of post-war Europe’s preeminent Marxist intellectuals. This, his memoir of Nazi-occupied Belgium, is both an elegy and an indictment. Liebman’s account of his childhood in Brussels under the Nazi occupation explores the emergence of his class-consciousness against a background of resistance and collaboration. He documents the internal class war that has long been hidden from history: how the Nazi persecution exploited class distinctions within the Jewish community, and how certain Jewish notables collaborated in a systematic programme of denunciation and deportation against immigrant Jews who lacked the privileges of wealth and citizenship.

Born Jewish is a fierce, powerful and subtle account of the Liebman family’s struggle to survive persecution and terror, a story rich with insight, humour and lyricism.