Ilona Heller, 90, of Severna Park, died of complications of a stroke March 3 at Future Care-Chesapeake in Arnold.

Born to Czech parents in Vienna, Austria, Mrs. Heller was reared in Kojetice, Czechoslovakia, and graduated from the English School in Prague. Her grandfather. Gustav Neumann, was the founder of Labor, the largest work-clothes manufacturer in Central Europe. She married Robert Heller, who became managing director of Labor in 1934.

After the Nazis invaded in 1939 and confiscated the factory, Mr. Heller escaped in order to join the British Army in North Africa. Plans for a Yugoslav diplomat to smuggle out Mrs. Heller and their son, Charles, were foiled. After hiding her son on a farm, Mrs. Heller was arrested and placed in a slave labor camp, where she spent the remainder of World War II. Fifteen members of the Heller and Neumann families were killed by the Nazis.

She was reunited with her husband and son in May 1945 upon the liberation of Czechoslovakia, where they lived in freedom until the Communist takeover in 1948. This time the family escaped together with only the belongings they could carry across the border into the U.S. Zone of Germany. There they lived in refugee camps until permitted to emigrate to the United States in 1949.

The family settled in Morristown, N.J. Mr. Heller worked his way from pattern-cutter to one of the top executives at the one of the world's largest sportswear company. Mrs. Heller worked as a cleaning lady and then a seamstress, later retiring as an associate scientist at Warner-Lambert pharmaceutical company.

Mr. Heller died in 1988.

After the end of Communism and the 1989 "Velvet Revolution," Mrs. Heller and her son recovered some of the family's property in the Czech Republic, including the Labor factory in Kojetice and an office building in Prague. She visited her native country twice where she had many friends and admirers. After democracy was restored, her hometown named a street after the Neumann family.

Mrs. Heller moved to Sunrise Independent Living in Severna Park in 2001 to be near her son, now of Arnold, and family. In her youth she had been an active sportswoman, enjoying skiing, gymnastics and skiing, and in her later years she enjoyed watching various sports.

In addition to her son, she is survived by a grandson and three great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at 11 a.m. Monday at Barranco and Sons Severna Park Funeral Home, 495 Ritchie Highway. Online condolences may be made at www.barrancofuneralhome.com.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Anne Arundel Medical Center Foundation, 2001 Medical Parkway, Sajak Pavilion, Suite 240, Annapolis, MD 21401

As published on 3/4/2006 in The Capital Newspaper, Annapolis, MD