18 Facts About Vladimir Herzog

Vladimir Herzog, nicknamed Vlado by his family and friends, was a Brazilian journalist, university professor and playwright of Croatian-Jewish origin and born in today's Croatia.

Vladimir Herzog developed a taste for photography, because of his film projects.

Vladimir Herzog's death had a great impact on the Brazilian society, marking the beginning of a wave of action towards the re-democratization process of the country.

Vladimir Herzog was born in Osijek, Kingdom of Yugoslavia province of Sava Banovina on 27 June 1937, to Zigmund and Zora Vladimir Herzog, a Croatian Jewish family who emigrated to Brazil in the early 1940s, to escape Nazi and Ustashe persecution.

Vladimir Herzog received a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Sao Paulo in 1959.

Vladimir Herzog became a naturalized Brazilian citizen in 1961 After his graduation, he worked as a journalist in the major media outlets in Brazil, notably in the newspaper O Estado de S Paulo.

Vladimir Herzog became a journalism professor at the University of Sao Paulo School of Communication and Arts and at Fundacao Armando Alvares Penteado's Journalism course.

Later in his life, Vladimir Herzog became active in the civil resistance movement against the military dictatorship in Brazil, as a member of the Brazilian Communist Party.

Vladimir Herzog was arrested with other two journalists, Jorge Duque Estrada Benigno and Rodolfo Konder, who later confirmed the treatment he received.

Vladimir Herzog was married to advertising agent Clarice Vladimir Herzog, with whom he had two young children.

The death of Vladimir Herzog boosted the movement against the military dictatorship in Brazil.

The author points out that the picture provided by the military as proof of Vladimir Herzog's suicide portrayed the prisoner hanging by his prison belt tied to his cell's bars with his feet touching the floor and his knees notably bent.

Vladimir Herzog was the thirty-eighth person to "commit suicide" after being arrested by the military.

Vladimir Herzog's death is seen today as the beginning of the end of the Brazilian military dictatorship.

Vladimir 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 Sao Paulo.

At the request of several religious and human rights groups, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an independent arm of the Organization of American States, investigated the conflicting circumstances surrounding the death of Vladimir Herzog, and found that the Brazilian junta arrested, tortured and murdered Herzog because of his activities as a journalist.

Ivo Herzog, son of Vladimir Herzog, delivered petitions for Jose Maria Marin's removal from the Brazilian Football Confederation and from the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

In 2009, over 30 years after Herzog's death, the Vladimir Herzog Institute was founded.