Vladimir Herzog

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Vladimir Herzog (Osijek, Croatia, June 27, 1937 — São Paulo, October 25, 1975), also known as Vlado, was a Brazilian jewish TV journalist, university professor and theater author, who was murdered by political police due to ideological reasons.

He was born in former Yugoslavia to Zigmundo and Zora Herzog, of Jewish origins, and immigrated with them to Brazil as a youngster in the 1940's, escaping from Nazism. He had a distinguished career in São Paulo state educational TV, TV Cultura, where he was chief of journalism, and was active in the civil resistance movement to the 1964-1979 Brazilian military dictatorship. He was also a professor at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo, and a dramaturgist.

Herzog was killed in detention on 25 October 1975 by the state's repressive apparatus. He had been arrested after turning up voluntarily at the headquarters of the II Army to clarify his political activities and connections with clandestine opposition movements. The official version for his death was that he had committed suicide by hanging, after admitting to be a member of the then illegal Brazilian Communist Party. Autopsy was inconclusive, but at the time forensic pathologists were functionaries of the police and systematically produced false autopsy reports in cases of death by torture. Two other journalists who were arrested with him and were at an adjoining prison cell witnessed his torture. Public opinion, however, never accepted this version and his murder generated national indignation. The then president of the Republic, General Ernesto Geisel was also irritated by these and other actions by what he called the "criminals" of the largely parallel power of military-directed violent political repression, and ordered a clean-up and a step down in these activities, firing the main ultra-right wing general behind it, Ednardo D’Ávila Melo.

According to Henry Sobel, the chief rabbi of the main synagogue of São Paulo at the time, the murder of Herzog changed the country. "It was the catalyst of the eventual restoration of democracy. His death will always be a painful memory of a shady period of repression, a perpetual echo of the voice of freedom, which will never be kept silent."

After finding out that Herzog’s body bore the marks of torture, rabbi Sobel decided that he should be buried in the center of the cemetery rather than in a corner, as Jewish tradition demands in cases of suicide. This was made public and completely destroyed the official version of suicide. Opposition to the repressive order was rekindled. An active and effective anti-dictatorship movement was launched and this culminated with the re-democratization process and the end of the military dictatorship in 1979. His death is seen today as the beginning of the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Herzog has become a symbol of the fight for democracy in Brazil and has been honoured in many ways, such as by attributing it to the street where the TV Cultura is located in São Paulo. In addition a public prize for journalism devoted to amnesty and human rights has been established with his name (Prêmio de Jornalismo Vladimir Herzog de Anistia e Direitos Humanos).


Later, in a civil lawsuit of his widow against the government, a federal tribunal recognized his wrongful death and accorded monetary damages to Herzog's family. A documentary by director João Batista de Andrade, titled Herzog - 30 anos, was shot in 2005. In the same year, a new public scandal happened when new photographs of an alive and naked Herzog in the prison cell were released to the Internet, and were justified by a high-ranking military officer in president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's office.

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