Lea Gottlieb

Lea Gottlieb was born in 1918 in Sajószentpéter

Lea Gottlieb was born Lea Lenke Roth in Sajószentpéter, Hungary, to a Jewish family, and was raised in poverty by an aunt. She planned to study chemistry, but a quota on Jewish students blocked her studies in Budapest. She married Armin Gottlieb and worked as a bookkeeper at his family's raincoat factory.

During the German occupation of Hungary, her husband was sent to a labor camp. She hid from the Nazis with her daughters Miriam and Judith, moving between hiding places in Sajószentpéter and Budapest. At checkpoints she covered her face with flowers to avoid being recognized as a Jew.

In 1949 the couple immigrated to Israel and opened a raincoat factory in Jaffa. In 1956 they founded Gottex, a swimwear and beachwear company, and she served as its chief designer. Her designs often used floral patterns and the colors of the Israeli landscape, and the company exported to many countries.

Armin Gottlieb died in 1995, and in 1997 the family sold Gottex to Lev Leviev. She later left the company, and in 2005 she launched a swimwear brand under her own name. She died at her home in Tel Aviv on 17 November 2012.