Béla Wortman

The town of Lendava boasts the first umbrella factory founded in the Austro-Hungarian Empire — the Hungária Hazai Ernyőgyár Rt. The umbrella factory in Dolnja Lendava grew out of Béla Wortman's sewing shop in 1904, which was housed in the building that stood in the courtyard of the savings bank Alsólendvai Takarékpénztár. After two years, it was transformed into a joint-stock company. Due to the success of the factory, the owners decided to expand: by 1907, the new factory building, which still stands today, was built.

At the beginning of the 1910s, the umbrella factory in Dolnja Lendava employed on average 30-40 workers, producing about 300 umbrellas per day. During World War I, production declined along with demand. After the war, the Lendava region was annexed to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, so it was deemed prudent to change the name of the umbrella factory to Slovenian, therefore it operated under the name Tovarna dežnikov.  Umbrella production resumed in 1923, and the demand for these products increased. The second half of the 1930s proved to be crucial for the development of the umbrella factory — as the factory was modernised, a new plant, a knitting factory, was established.

In 1941, the company changed its name again to Hungária Hazai Ernyőgyár Rt. After the end of World War II, the Lendava region became part of the new Yugoslavia, in which, according to the ideology of the time, the umbrella factory was nationalised. In the spring of 1945, the building was completely plundered by passing Soviet troops. Umbrella production in Lendava started anew in 1947, but in a different building, in the workshop of today's house at Glavna ulica 52.

The new umbrella factory operated successfully until the 1980s, but it was brought to its knees by the increasingly strong presence of goods from the Far East on the world market. The INDIP umbrella factory was liquidated in 2001.

Sources:

https://muravidek.csemadok.sk/emlekhelyek/a-hungaria-hazai-ernyogyar-lendvan/

https://www.rtvslo.si/mmr/hirek/seta-a-muzeumban/a-lendvai-ernyogyar-toertenete/557742