Anita Leocádia Prestes

Who is Anita Leocádia Prestes?

Anita Leocádia Prestes is a Brazilian historian. She is the daughter of militant Communists Olga Benário Prestes and Luís Carlos Prestes.

She was born in the Barnimstraße concentration camp and was handed to the care of her paternal grandmother, Leocádia Prestes, at age 14 months. Her mother Olga was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp and from there to an experimental extermination camp set up at an old psychiatric hospital in Bernburg Euthanasia Centre in 1942, where she was gassed.

In 1964, Prestes achieved a degree in Chemistry from the then "University of Brazil", now known as the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Two years later she gained a Masters in Organic Chemistry.