Jef Elbers
| Jef Elbers | |
|---|---|
| Born |
19 September 1947 Brussels, Belgium |
| Nationality | Belgian |
| Occupation | political activist, script writer, singer |
Jef Elbers (born 19 September 1947) is a Flemish singer, script writer, and political activist.
Jef Elbers’ was born in Brussels, the son of an Ukrainian mother. His father, a Brussels citizen, worked as head of department at the national telegraph and telephone company (RTT) and his mother was a housewife. His parents survived the Nazi concentration camps: his father ended up there as a prisoner of war, while his Ukrainian mother, as Untermensch, was a victim of the racial policy of Nazi Germany. This makes him a so-called victim of the second generation.
Jef Elbers attended the Jesuit College, studying Latin and Sciences. He was married, but is now divorced. He has 5 children. In 1973 he won a talent competition, hosted by radio station Omroep Brabant from the broadcasting network of the Belgian Radio and Television. This is the beginning of a career as a singer, which leads to the production, between 1973 and 1984, of 6 long players.
Elbers' involvement in politics was shaped in reaction to the attitudes of Brussels' francophone upper classes, who tended to perceive the Flemish as the equivalent of foreign workers. In this, he followed in the path of his ancestor Ferdinand Elbers, secretary of the Brussels federation of the Belgian Labour Party (POB-BWP) who, due to the language problems within the federation, asked in 1901: ”Comrades, don’t you think a Flemish Member of Parliament becomes necessary in our district, composed of 125 municipalities of which 112 are exclusively Dutch. We do our duty by pointing out that, outside the capital, we are asked to designate a Flemish representative, and that the Federation would act very judiciously in the future by designating a representative able to speak and to write the language of the people outside of the Brussels district.”
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