Sitting Down With… The Past: Eva Smolková-Keulemansová (1927 – 2024)

On her time during occupation:
 

“I was born on April 27, 1927. I grew up in the suburbs of Prague with my beloved parents. I had a happy childhood and enjoyed school until the Second World War and the occupation of my country. I spent the wartime in Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Hamburg and, finally, Bergen-Belsen. After the liberation, the Red Cross took me to Sweden for medical treatment – but my dream was to return to Prague to resume my studies. My dream came true in November 1945.”

Getting started in gas chromatography:
 

“In the early 1950s, a volumetric chromatographic device grabbed my attention at an analytical conference in Prague. We started to prepare our own device with volumetric detection. Next, we constructed a glass thermal conductivity detector, which was more universal and allowed us to analyze a larger variety of gas. At the time, it was a new idea, but I wasn’t aware of that fact! Soon after, this detector became part of a commercially available instrument.”

Advice for the younger generation:
 

“I returned from my bad experience in the war with a key philosophy: my eyes are in the front of my head, therefore, I need to look towards the future. That’s helped me throughout my whole life. From my personal experience, I know that building relationships is not just a question of a mutual exchange of ideas; I gained a great deal of pleasure from the long-term friendships I forged with other scientists. And that includes students – who later saved me from the feeling of getting old! I learned from Berzelius (the well-known 19th Century Swedish chemist) the important role that fantasy plays in science. It is often the way to new ideas. Finally, I remember Zhukhovitskii’s closing remarks at a Moscow symposium in 1959: ‘Gas chromatography is an excellent method to separate substances, and an excellent way to unite people.’”

Read the full article, first published in November 2014.