dr Berta J. BERGMAN

Dr. BERTA BERGMAN (Bergmann), born on May 10, 1894, in the vicinity of Sarajevo, as the eldest daughter of railway official JOZEF or JOSIP and ERNESTINA. Coming from an Ashkenazi Jewish background in Vienna. Her parents wanted to provide their daughters with the highest education, so Berta and her sister Marija enrolled in the second and third grade, respectively, of the eight-year Gymnasium in Mostar in 1905. They became the first female students of this school and the first women to complete high school in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both sisters continued their education in Vienna, where Berta graduated in 1918 and became a medical doctor. She returned to Bosnia and worked as a pediatrician in several places, including Banja Luka. Prior to the war, she was appointed as the head of the School Polyclinic in Mostar (located at the site of the “Ruža” hotel).

With the rise of the Ustaše regime, Berta assisted the resistance movement in Mostar. She procured medical supplies, taught courses for nurses, and treated wounded individuals. At the same time, she provided shelter in her own home for Jewish refugees from Sarajevo and other cities fleeing towards the Italian-occupied zone. She was arrested twice by the Ustaše, the last time being on January 15, 1945, towards the end of the war. The Ustaše took her to the Jasenovac concentration camp where she was soon executed.

Berta’s sister Marija, married Kon, who became the first woman with a doctorate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was dismissed from her job and sent to the Rab concentration camp at the beginning of the war. After the capitulation of Italy, she reached the liberated territory. Her children were involved in the partisan movement – her son Mihael (Mihajlo) Kon died as a partisan. Her daughter Mirjana was captured on Igman and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Marija and Mirjana survived the war. Their brother Alfred Fredi Bergman, known by the nicknames Mostarac and Lenc, was executed by the Ustaše in 1941 on Dotrščina in Zagreb. Another sister, Lujza Krčmar-Bergman, was in exile in Dubrovnik and joined the partisans in 1944. Her daughter Radojka Krčmar died in the Slovenian partisans.

On the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar, there are memorial plaques for three members of this family: Dr. Berta Bergman, Mihajlo Kon, and Radojka Krčmar. Berta Bergman’s name, alongside Dr. Safet Mujić, is on the memorial plaque for doctors, pharmacists, and medical and pharmaceutical students on the building of the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade. Another memorial plaque was unveiled for Berta and Marija in 2023 at the Gymnasium in Mostar, where they were once students. In 1999, a Holocaust monument was erected at the Jewish cemetery in Mostar, which also includes Berta’s name.