Bronisław Geremek was born as Benjamin Lewertow in Warsaw on 6 March 1932. His father Boruch Lewertow, a fur merchant, was murdered in Auschwitz. His mother, Sharca, and he were smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943 and were sheltered by Stefan Geremek. Geremek later married Bronisław's mother and Bronisław was further raised in a Roman Catholic tradition. In his adult life he considered himself neither a Jew nor a Catholic. His grandfather was a maggid, his brother Jerry, lived in New York as a Jew, and his sons living in Poland are Roman Catholics.