Žuži Jelinek (born Suzana Ferber;[1] 17 July 1920 – 23 January 2016) was a Hungarian-born Croatian fashion stylist, designer, and writer.

Jelinek was born in 1920 in Budapest[2][3] to poor Jewish parents, Izidor and Ruža Ferber, as the youngest of three children.

[3][6][7][8] Jelinek was only 17 years of age when she began to work in Paris as a seamstress in a factory of Nina Ricci.

[6] While in Sušak, where she moved to escape the Ustaše and Nazi persecution, Jelinek learned that her parents were about to be transported to Jasenovac concentration camp.

Tito called her and said that she could not continue to travel and promote her models as Žuži Jelinek, because he considered it not to be beneficial for the Yugoslavia workers' self-management.

[7][9] Jelinek authored eight books and was from 1994 as a regular columnist to the Croatian women's magazine Gloria.

[8][10] Croatian Radiotelevision produced a documentary which recounts Jelinek's life during her early years of poverty and then her later success.

[9] A few years before her death Jelinek received an offer from Steven Spielberg, who wanted to make a film about her life.

It has been said that because he heard her story, that of a single Jewish woman during the Holocaust who risked her life to save those of her parents.

In the end, although she was very flattered by the offer, Jelinek declined, concluding that due to constraints on her time, she couldn't afford to spend two years in the United States.