Rodgers was born in Wedding (Berlin) to working-class Jewish parents.
[2][3] Her mother insisted that Silvia not participate in the Nazi salute at school.
[3] 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".
[1] 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.
[5] Rodgers completed a PhD in anthropology at Oxford, on the subject of the rituals of ship-launching: The symbolism of ship launching in the Royal Navy (1983).