Contemporary photograph of Eva Duskova

This photograph was taken in the year 2005 by Zuzana Strouhova, who did the interview with Mrs. Eva Duskova for the Centropa project. After graduating I went on to study Library Science at the Faculty of Philosophy. I had wanted to take psychology, but halfway through my last year of high school I learned that I'd have to combine it with pure philosophy, and back then pure philosophy meant above all Marxism. Well, and so I rejected that notion and applied for Languages - not very cleverly though, because I applied for English-German. For in 1950 it was absolutely out of the question that I'd be accepted, when I didn't have a Party background. So I was very lucky that back then they wrote me: 'You have been accepted into Library Science.' And so I studied Library Science. We had several people that had written entrance exams in completely different subject areas. For example, my current colleague, not only from the same year, but also the same profession, wrote her entrance exams in art history. And was also notified: 'You have been accepted into Library Science.' Because no one was interested in Library Science! Anita Frankova, for example, applied for History and was accepted into Archival Science. She was in the same year. Back then it wasn't possible to transfer to a different department, when they had already accepted you into the Faculty of Philosophy, even though I think someone perhaps managed it, but on the other hand they could accept you into a completely different department than the one you wrote entrance exams for. Back then I said to myself that better Library Science than nothing. But then I began to like it, and I do to this day. I really got into Library Science, I was captivated mainly by the system. Moreover, back then at the Hydrodynamic Institute the content also captivated me. My father was a technical person, I was even familiar with some authors that my father had talked about, so it was something that near and dear to me. And at the Terezin Initiative, it's near and dear to me as a Jewess who herself was in Terezin.