Berman Simon (Shimon) Iosifovich (01.09.1910, Riga — 24.06.1975, Riga) — gynaecologist, surgeon.
His father, Iosif Berman, was a merchant who owned a trading firm in Riga supplying marine vessels with equipment. His mother, Erika (Raikha) Tal, kept house and raised two sons. Since the family's native language was German, B. was educated in German. He displayed exceptional aptitude for languages and the humanities. Already at school he was fluent in English, French, Latvian and Latin; during the Soviet period he achieved perfect command of Russian. In 1926, he graduated from the German commercial gymnasium (located in the building of what is now the Art Academy), where he also studied classical languages. In 1927, he enrolled at the Medical Faculty of the German Charles University, graduating in 1933. In that same year he returned to Riga and began working as a surgeon at the Jewish women's hospital “Linat Ha-Tsedek” (“Abode of Mercy”).

During World War II, he worked in an evacuation hospital as a surgeon. In 1944, he returned to Latvia. In evacuation, his mother and his two-year-old son died from disease and malnutrition. In Latvia, he learned that his only brother Beno had been denounced to the Gestapo and killed.

After the war, together with the surviving Jewish physicians, he continued working at the “Bikur Holim” hospital (at that time — the 3rd Riga City Hospital). B. alternately headed the maternity and gynaecological departments and was deputy chief physician for obstetrics. Medical staff and patients adored him. In addition to high professionalism and deep knowledge, he possessed exceptional wit and a rare sense of tact. Far removed from intrigue and gossip, he valued human life and motherhood above all. Remarkably modest, despising pretence and pomposity, Dr. Berman was one of the most prominent and revered physicians in Riga. His daughter Erika speaks of her father: “A woman with an infant was for him a symbol of beauty. He saved many lives — both as a brilliant physician and diagnostician, and as a blood donor. If a call came from the hospital in the night, at home, he would rush there in his coat flapping in the wind, sometimes in winter frost over icy cobblestones of Moskovskaya Street. And then, when in '57 he bought a Moskvich, he would race there in it for eighteen years. Every Jewish and non-Jewish woman from the Moskovsky District wanted to give birth only with him. Once he came to a school parents' meeting. What a commotion ensued! The mothers dragged their children up to him and asked: 'Dr. Berman, do you recognise him (or her)?'“

B. possessed colossal practical experience in surgical gynaecology and obstetrics; he was a physician of the highest category but was never interested in an academic career. He generously shared his knowledge, which became the basis of other people's dissertations. A positive review from Dr. Berman on an academic dissertation in obstetrics and gynaecology was considered a guarantee of its successful defence.

In 1965, B. founded the pathological pregnancy department at the hospital where he worked. He then succeeded in having a mansion on the Riga seashore in Dzintari assigned to this department. Pregnant women were given wards with blue and pink moulded floral décor, large magnificent windows and views of a neglected garden. Senior management came here repeatedly and marvelled at the excellent results. Dr. B. was an honorary blood donor of the USSR.

B. died prematurely and suddenly from an incurable illness, on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his wedding. He is buried in Riga at the Šmerlis Jewish cemetery.