As a Jew, a communist and an artist, Lea Grundig was persecuted and vilified by the Nazis. From 1933 she was an active member of the anti-fascist resistance and saw herself – until her expulsion from Germany – as an artist in domestic exile. She was frequently the subject of house searches, surveillance, interrogations and arrests. She and her husband, the painter Hans Grundig, rejected thoughts of escape and worked for the resistance. During this time she created works that addressed, among other things, the everyday experiences that took place under the Swastika, such as denunciation and persecution.

Lea Grundig was deported in 1939. The Gestapo took her to Prague. She went from here via Vienna and Bratislava to the Romanian city of Tulcea. She undertook the sea crossing with the SS Pacific to Palestine. She changed en route to the SS Patria, which then sank. As a result of this, after a nine-month odyssey through Europe, Lea Grundig spent just under a year in the British internment camp Atlit as an illegal immigrant. After her release, Grundig first lived with her sister in Haifa and later moved to Tel Aviv. She learned Hebrew and settled down as an artist and book illustrator.

Upon receiving the news that Hans Grundig was still alive, in 1946 she started preparing for her remigration to Germany. It was not until 1948, however, after much effort to obtain a passport, as well as exit and entry permits, that she was able to leave Palestine and in 1949 – with a stopover in Prague – to return to Germany.