Dušan Toholj, a long-time employee of the National University Library of the University of Sarajevo and director during the war in BiH, died at the age of 91 in Sarajevo. He wrote for several magazines, and is also known for the fact that, without thinking about the danger, he saved books and literature from the burning of Sarajevo City Hall.
“The library is my life,” Toholj said then.
Toholj was born on May 9, 1932. in Čapljina. He is a graduate biologist and librarian. He moved to Sarajevo when he was four years old, where he finished elementary school and teacher training school, and then the Faculty of Science and Mathematics at UNSA, the Department of Biology when it was founded.
He worked in the Sarajevo National Library since 1952. He was educated while working.
He also worked in the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a botanist curator, but he returned to the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where he worked until his retirement in 1996.
He was a member and later president of the Procurement Commission. He establishes an archival fund as a special department for the accommodation of BiH. books and periodicals. He headed the department for information and publication accommodation.
Immediately before the war, he founded the Department for Physical Protection of Publications. He taught librarianship at the Gymnasium. He participated in various commissions of Republican and federal significance.
He was the main person for the rescue of books and literature from the Sarajevo City Hall, which was set on fire during the war. He placed the rescued publications in several locations in the city, and after the war, he organized their collection and enabled the Library to operate.
He also helped other libraries in the countries of the region that experienced natural disasters.
He was active in the International Center for Peace, the Sarajevo Winter Festival and associations of publishers and booksellers of BiH. He published articles in various professional journals.
He was awarded the Order of Labor with a Silver Wreath.
