Silvia Rodgers, Baroness Rodgers, (3 March 1928 – 8 October 2006), , was a

German-Jewish The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

-British writer and political activist. She was married to

Bill Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank William Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, (born 28 October 1928) is a British politician who served as Secretary of State for Transport from 1976 to 1979, and was one of the ' Gang of Four' of senior British Labour Party politician ...

Early life

Rodgers was born in

Wedding (Berlin) Wedding (german: der Wedding; ) is a locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany and was a separate borough in the north-western inner city until it was fused with Tiergarten and Mitte in Berlin's 2001 administrative reform. At the same ti ...

to working-class

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

parents. Her parents were members of the

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...

. Her mother insisted that Silvia not participate in the

Nazi salute The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...

at school. In an afterword to her memoir, Rodgers wrote "When I was ten and still in Berlin, I had that feeling that there was nothing I could not do". The family came to Britain in 1939.

Marriage and political involvement

Silvia Szulman and Bill Rodgers married in 1955. The couple had three daughters: Rachel, Lucy and Juliet. Rodgers influenced her husband's political career, particularly his decision to leave the Labour Party and set up the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

. Bill Rodgers said that most of the child-rearing fell to Silvia and that he was neglectful; she also worked as a dentist when he was first in parliament as they were not well-off. She was noted as a political hostess. Rodgers described herself as feeling like an outsider, dislocated and marginal.

Artistic career

Rodgers was a sculptor.

Research and writing

Rodgers completed a PhD in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, on the subject of the rituals of ship-launching: ''The symbolism of ship launching in the Royal Navy'' (1983). She was a

Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elec ...

. Her writings include: * "Women's space in a men's house: the British House of Commons" (1981), in ''Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps'', ed. Ardener, S * A memoir, ''Red Saint, Pink Daughter: a communist childhood in Berlin and London '' (1996), joint winner of the

Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize The Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize is an annual British literary prize inaugurated in 1977. It is named after the host ''Jewish Quarterly'' and the prize's founder Harold Hyam Wingate. The award recognises Jewish and non-Jewish writers r ...

for Non-Fiction (1997)"Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize Winners 1996 – 2000 inclusive"
/ref> * ''The Politician's Wife: life with Bill Rodgers'' (2007)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodgers, Silvia 1928 births 2006 deaths British autobiographers Women autobiographers English political hostesses Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism British women anthropologists British anthropologists Jewish women writers People from Mitte Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Spouses of life peers Rodgers of Quarry Bank 20th-century anthropologists 20th-century English women 20th-century English people