Steinberg, Maxime

Maxime Steinberg was a Belgian historian. His parents were Polish immigrants, active in the communist milieu in Brussels. Maxime survived the war as a “hidden child”; only his father Mendel Sztejnberg came back from the camps. As a youth, Steinberg became active in leftist organisations – first the Union Sportive des Jeunes Juifs (USJJ), later the Jeunesse Populaire de Belgique and Étudiants Communistes (both affiliated with the Belgian communist party). Later he was also a militant of the socialist union CGSP. Steinberg obtained a history degree from the Université libre de Bruxelles in 1961. From 1963-1999 he worked as a history teacher in Binche and the Brussels region. Maxime Steinberg was a committed scholar. Initially studying the labour movement, socialism and communism in Belgium, he turned to the history of the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War in the mid-1970s. He became the pioneer of Holocaust research and the study of the Jewish resistance in Belgium – cfr. notably Extermination, sauvetage et résistance des juifs de Belgique (1979), Le dossier Bruxelles-Auschwitz (1980), Die Endlösung der Judenfrage in Belgien. Dokumente (1980), Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de Belgique (1984), La Persécution des Juifs en Belgique (1940-1945) (2004), and L’étoile et le fusil, his magnum opus in three parts (published in 1983, 1984, and 1987) through which he obtained a PhD. in 1987. As associated professor at the Institut d’Études du Judaïsme (Institut Martin Buber), Steinberg lectured in the history of anti-Semitism and genocide (1982-2010). From 1977 onwards he participated in forming the civil party for the trial against Kurt Asche in Kiel; during the trial (1980-1981) Steinberg also figured as a historical expert. Steinberg remained committed to research and remembrance of genocide in general, and of the Shoah in particular. He was involved in the project Démocratie ou barbarie (1994-2000), directed the Centre européen d’Études sur la Shoah, l’Antisémitisme et le Génocide (1994-2002) and was called as an expert at the Kibungo trial (“Rwanda 2”) in 2005. From its inception in 1996 to its current incarnation, Steinberg was an advisor to and member of the scientific committee of the Holocaust museum in the former Dossin barracks in Mechelen, and co-author of its pedagogical and historical concept. Steinberg was also involved in writing the historical texts for the renovated Belgian pavilion at Auschwitz (opened in 2006). For his work and his engagement, he received awards such as Mensch de l’année 2008 (from the CCLJ), the Prix Dov Liebermann (from the Institut Martin Buber, in 1979) and the Prix Condorcet-Aron du Livre (in 2004). Steinberg was married to Renée Serjacobs; they had four children.