During the proclamation of the Independent State of Croatia, Drenka fled to Belgrade with her surviving sister and mother. During World War II in 1941 after her brother, father, and numerous relatives were murdered by the Ustashi. During the war, she learned German, then Russian and English. She went to England in 1949, where she studied at Birmingham University. Between 1953 and 1956 she was an English teacher at the University of Belgrade. In 1956 she married an American from New York City and moved to the United States. From 1961 she worked as a freelance translator from Serbo-Croatian for the Harcourt publishing house when she was commissioned by William Jovanovich to translate short stories by Ivo Andrić. Then she edited the autobiography of Milovan Djilas.