Dušanka Dragila was born in 1922 in Zagreb, Croatia. During the Second World War, she was imprisoned in a concentration camp. When she was released in the beginning of 1945, she began working for the state security agency, the Department for People's Protection (in Serbo-Croatian Odeljenje za zaštitu naroda or OZNA), in Slavonia, where she met her husband Pero Dragila, who held the rank of major in the OZNA.

In 1946, the Dragila couple were sent to Washington, D.C., to work in the Yugoslav diplomatic mission. When the Cominform Resolution was made in 1948, Dušanka and Pero Dragila took a pro-Soviet stance and thus were forced to resign their diplomatic positions. Soon after, they emigrated to Prague together with other Yugoslav diplomats who supported the resolution.

Dušanka Dragila was active from the very beginning of the formation of the Yugoslav Cominformist emigrant group in Prague. While her husband Pero had more organisational role within the group, Dušanka was involved in its propaganda activities. Dušanka Dragila was a member of editorial staff of the emigrant newspaper Nova Borba until 1954 and worked for a Yugoslav emigrant radio in Prague until 1953.

When the Yugoslav Cominformist emigrants from across Europe became more active again in the 1970s, leading to the formation of the new illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1974, Dušanka and Pero Dragila, together with Ivan Sinanovič, operated the party’s Prague cell. Their small group became a centre for the production and distribution of illegal propagandistic leaflets sent to Yugoslavia. Dušanka and Pero Dragila were the main authors of these leaflets, which were illegally printed and sent to Yugoslavia up until 1976. These leaflets now form the Yugoslav Cominformists in Prague collection.

Dušanka Dragila never renounced her radical leftist attitudes. Since the Cominform Resolution in 1948, she has acted as a principled and steadfast anti-Titoist and was never apprehended by the Yugoslav regime. She spent her remaining years in Prague.