After retiring from competition, she was a pharmacist and a swimming coach; her students included her daughter, who also became an Olympic swimmer.
As one of Hungary's greatest swimmers, she set several world and Olympic records. She won a gold medal in the 200-meter breaststroke at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki and a silver medal in the same event in Melbourne four years later.
Holocaust survivor, parents with Dezso Gyarmati of Andrea Gyarmati, the only mother, father, and daughter family ever to be inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.
She was a Hungarian Jew who survived WWII in a forced labor program and later in a safe house run by the Swiss.