Ottilija Ester (Otti) Berger was born in Austrian-Hungarian (now Croatia) Zmajevac. She studied art and design in Zagreb, and then starting in 1927, at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She was photogenic and can be found in numerous photographs, as well as portraits by Lucia Moholy (see the cover image and others). She graduated in 1930, and was nominated by Gunta Stölzl to lead the weaving class in 1931. She opened her own textile studio in 1932, and would run this successfully until 1936 when her work permit was revoked by the Nazi-government. She was engaged to marry Ludwig Hilberseimer (whom she affectionately called Hilbe). The photograph of her sitting in the Bauhaus Dessau cantine foreshadows her fate, Otti Berger was persecuted by the Nazis for her Jewish roots. After a failed attempt to emigrate to London (poor English abilities and the Brits regarded her as a German, and her mother took ill), she returned to Hungary in 1938 where she and her family were later arrested and deported. She was murdered in 1944 in Auschwitz.