Sylvia Bermann

Sylvia Bermann (Córdoba, 1922 - Córdoba, September 17, 2012) was an Argentine psychiatrist, public health specialist, essayist, and member of the guerrilla group Montoneros. She spent several years in Mexico before returning to Argentina to practice her profession and manage the clinic that her father, Gregorio Bermann, had established.

Early life and education Sylvia's father, Gregorio Bermann came from a family of Russian Jews, who arrived in Buenos Aires at the end of the 19th century. Gregorio was a leader of the first stage of the university Reform of 1918. He married the Buenos Aires socialist professor Leonilda Barrancos, who hailed from a family of ranchers from Chivilcoy. Gregorio and Leonilda had three children: Sylvia, Daniel Gregorio (died at the age of a year and a half) and Claudio Santiago (psychoanalyst, who would settle in Barcelona).

In 1921, the family moved to Córdoba because the father would teach at the National University of Córdoba. Sylvia grew up in a family where political and social commitment was daily, where politics was constantly discussed and socialist values were promoted. Her parents separated, and when the Popular Front won in Chile, Leonilda decided to go to work in that country. In Santiago, living with her mother, Sylvia began a medical degree at the University of Chile.

At that time, Sylvia joined the direct political militancy in the FJS (Socialist Youth Federation) in Santiago. Salvador Allende was Minister of Health, and he was a close friend of Sylvia and Leonilda. In 1943, Gregorio was arrested in the city of Córdoba, and imprisoned. Sylvia ―who was in her third year of Medicine studies― decided to return to Argentina. She would visit her father in jail and bring him food in some suitcases. Gregorio was released when the 1944 San Juan earthquake occurred. and director of that organization's newspaper. She obtained a postgraduate degree in Public Health and Mental Health at Harvard University. For twenty years, she was the director of the , in Avellaneda, Buenos Aires Province , Argentina. she was part of the board of directors of the Argentine Federation of Psychiatry (FAP), of which she was elected president before the military coup. from 1976.

On the night of November 12, 1976, Sylvia's house was ransacked. of Montoneros, which provided assistance to the Nicaraguan people in the final stages of the Sandinista struggle. Its provisional council was made up of Sylvia as well as Eduardo Astiz, Gerardo Bavio, Miguel Bonasso, René Chaves, Olimpia Díaz de Dri, Jaime Dri, Ernesto Jauretche, Pedro Orgambide, Pablo Ramos, Julio Rodríguez Anido, Susana Sanz and Daniel Vaca Narvaja.

Return to Argentina In December 1983, when the military left power in Argentina, Sylvia returned to the city of Córdoba to practice her profession. She also returned to the management of the Gregorio Bermann Institute, a clinic created by her father in that city, which had been managed by her brother, the psychoanalyst Claudio Bermann. In 1977, Claudio was saved by the United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger from being disappeared by the Videla dictatorship.

In March 1987, federal judge Miguel Pons ordered Sylvia's preventive detention for "illicit association". She was later dismissed for lack of evidence.