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Leopold Flam was born in Antwerp on March 16, 1912. His parents were Herman Flam and Mala Weitz, immigrants from Poland and Russia. The young Leopold obtained Belgian nationality and was able to study at the University of Ghent, where he pursued social sciences, history, philosophy, and physics. After completing his studies, he began working as a teacher in Antwerp in 1939. Flam was married to Julia Isbutsky, a Jewish woman from Antwerp. The couple had one son, Plato Erasmus Hendrik Leopold Flam, born on July 19, 1939.
After the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940, the country came under occupation. Anti-Jewish decrees severely restricted the lives of Jews in Belgium. From the end of 1940, Leopold was no longer allowed to work as a teacher because, as a Jew, he was forbidden to do so. To protect his family, Leopold took his wife and son to a hiding place before joining the Comité de Défense des Juifs (Committee for the Defense of Jews). Flam became head of the press and propaganda department and editor of the underground newspaper De Vrije Gedachte (The Free Thought), for which he also wrote under the pseudonym Flamme.
In May 1943, Leopold was arrested because of his Jewish background. He was taken to the Dossin Barracks, where he remained until October 1943, when he was released for unknown reasons. In March 1944, however, he was arrested again, this time for his activities in the resistance. From the prison in Antwerp’s Begijnenstraat, he was deported to Buchenwald as a political prisoner.
He managed to survive forced labor in the concentration camps and was reunited with his wife and son after the camp’s liberation in 1945. Back in Belgium, he joined the Aide aux Israélites Victimes de la Guerre (Aid to Jewish War Victims) and began teaching in Brussels. In 1956, he became a professor of philosophy at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. During his career, he published numerous philosophical works and became highly regarded in academic circles. He died in 1995 at the age of 83.