Berta Bergman
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10 May 1894
Berta Bergman | |
|---|---|
 Bergman as the head of the children's polyclinic in Mostar | |
| Born | Berta Bergmann 10 May 1894 |
| Died | 15 January 1945 (aged 51) |
| Cause of death | Murdered in the Holocaust |
| Alma mater | University of Vienna |
| Occupation | Medical physician |
| Years active | 1918-1945 |
Berta Bergman (née Bergmann; 10 May 1894-15 January 1945) was a Bosnian Jewish physician and partisan. She is also well known for being the first woman to finish high school in Bosnia.[1]
Berta Bergman was born 10 May 1894 in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary (modern day Bosnia and Herzegovina) to a family of German-speaking Jews. The eldest of four daughters, her mother Ernesta and her father Joseph were Ashkenazi Jews from Vienna. Both moved to Sarajevo during the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia as her father worked as a railway engineer for the Imperial Royal Austrian State of Railways.[2] Despite the family having a strong financial income, Bergman's mother vowed to secure a higher education for her daughters.[3]
The girls first attended gymnasium in Mostar to achieve this. Berta and her older sister Marija made headlines when in 1905, they became the first female pupils in Mostar Gymnasium.[4] In February 1912, the Croatian newspaper Narodna obrana published a report saying that Berta was the first female in Bosnia and Herzegovina to graduate from school.[5] She went on to study medicine at the University of Vienna, graduating in 1918.[1] All her younger sisters would also receive their degrees. Her sister Marija became the first Bosnian woman to be awarded a doctorate.[3]