June 15, 2021 by Michele Willens · Arts & Culture

Bras, Girdles, and Family Secrets: The Revealing Story of the Olga Company

You've probably worn Olga lingerie at some point in your life. In a new memoir, the founders' daughter tells the incredible saga of her parents and their company.

Christina Erteszek grew up knowing everything possible about ladies' underwear. But what she didn't know about her parents, the founders of The Olga Company, the lingerie maker, could fill a book--literally.

Erteszek's father was a Jewish criminal lawyer in Poland. ‘Jakob’ met Christina’s mother, ‘Otylia,’ in 1933 in Krakow. Their families were almost completely taken out by the Holocaust, but they managed to emigrate to America. Later known as Jan and Olga, they founded a women's undergarment company, Olga, that by 1984 was valued at $67 million. They raised Christina and her two older sisters primarily in Los Angeles: sending them to good schools and becoming active in the First Congregational Church. Yes, you read that right. Christina did not know she was Jewish—let alone about her parents’ previous lives—until she was 15.

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