Alfred J. BERGMAN

ALFRED, also known as FREDI MOSTARAC, LENC BERGMAN, son of JOSIP, born on November 28, 1901, in Visoko, in the family of Josip (Jozef) Bergmann and Ernestine née Gelber. His father, Jozef, was a railway worker and a member of the Social Democratic Party before World War I, and later a member of the Communist Party. Alfred lived in Mostar from early childhood, where he became involved in the revolutionary workers’ movement. He studied economics in Frankfurt and Vienna. He was among the first Jews to join the revolutionary workers’ movement. He became a member of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Yugoslavia (Communists) in 1919 and a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. From 1925, he worked in Party technical positions at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in Vienna, Prague, and Paris. In early 1928, he returned to the country and continued his revolutionary activities in Zagreb. He was arrested in October 1928 and handed over to the State Court for the Protection of the State, which sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in 1929. After serving his sentence, he was expelled to Mostar.

In 1934, he emigrated to Vienna, where he continued to serve as a technician at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. At the end of the same year, he participated in the preparations for the Fourth Land Conference of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. Within the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, he worked as a secretary of the student club, a member of the local committee, a member of the Central Committee of the Red Aid of Yugoslavia, a member of the Balkan Committee of the Red Aid, and a leader of illegal technical operations at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in the country and abroad. He spent most of his time working on organizational and technical tasks both legally and illegally, using various codenames and pseudonyms such as Lanz, Paskalović, Savić, Nenadov M. J., Fred, and Zubar.

In Moscow in 1936, he worked on dispatching communists to Spain. In 1936, he was employed by the Department of International Liaison (OMS) of the Comintern, where he purchased and organized the transport of weapons from Western European countries to Spain. He himself went to Spain in 1937, where he served in the artillery and later in administration and special assignments. After the war, he lived and worked in France for a period of time. He arrived in Split on the steamship SS “Lina Matković” on September 24, 1940, but was arrested and handed over to the Zagreb police. He was interned in Lepoglava, and by a verdict on April 9, 1941, he was acquitted of charges. However, he was kept in prison and handed over to the Ustaše authorities, who transferred him to the newly established camp in Kerestinec. He was executed by firing squad in the Dotrščina forest behind Maksimir in Zagreb on July 9, 1941. In the same group, well-known Croatian communists were executed: Dr. Božidar Adžija, Ognjen Prica, Otokar Keršovani, Dr. Ivo Kun, Zvonimir Richtman, Ivan Korski, Viktor Rosenzweig, Sigismund Kraus, and Simo Crnogorac. Ivan Krndelj was on the list but was returned, and Bergman was taken in his place. Afterwards, the Ministry of Internal Affairs issued a notice stating that all ten of them were executed on July 9, 1941, as hostages and “spiritual founders” on the occasion of the liquidation of Ustaše agent Ljudevit Tiljak, a former member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia who turned into a spy.

Alfred Bergman is the brother of Dr. Berta Bergman, and the uncle of fallen fighters Mihajlo Kon and Radojka Krčmar. His execution, along with the prisoners from Kerestinec, was depicted in the third episode of the TV series “Unconquered City” (source: Antifašistički vjesnik).