This fierce memoir is both an elegy and an indictment. Marcel Liebmans 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.

Eminent Marxist intellectual reveals class struggles in Nazi-torn Belgium

Joel Wainwright, associate professor at Ohio State, is author of Geopiracy and Decolonizing Development, which won the Blaut award.