Liliana S. Dujan; High School Job Counselor

Liliana Sylvia Dujan, a longtime job counselor at Rio Mesa High School, died Thursday at Los Robles Regional Medical Center. She was 56.

Dujan was born Aug. 28, 1944, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1979, she and her family fled to the United States to escape political turmoil in her homeland. A year later the family settled in Thousand Oaks.

Dujan worked as a job placement counselor for special education students at Rio Mesa High School and thrived on the individual attention she was able to give.

Dujan enjoyed going to the beach and traveling. She and her husband, Hugo Dujan, traveled to New York, Europe and South America, said her son, Pat Dujan.

“She just loved walking in the cities and having a day or a week, getting herself lost,” he said.

Liliana Dujan’s grandmother was a Russian Jew, and Liliana enjoyed cooking family recipes, which ranged from rossel, a beef noodle stew, to stuffed cabbage and borscht.

“She loved to have a big table for the holidays,” Pat Dujan said. “A small gathering for us would be like 10 to 15 people.”

When company was expected, his mother stayed awake into the wee hours of the night making homemade honey cakes, brownies or pound cake.

In 1998, she earned her bachelor’s degree in Spanish with a minor in women’s studies from Cal Lutheran University. She began teaching Spanish at Birmingham High School in Van Nuys but was forced to quit after she was diagnosed with colon cancer in November.

After a few rounds of chemotherapy, the cancer spread to her lungs. She was admitted to Los Robles on Oct. 14.

She is survived by her husband, Hugo Dujan; a daughter, Sonia Dujan of Los Angeles; two sons, Patricio Dujan of Santa Barbara and Alexis Dujan of San Francisco; her father, Naftole Kaplan of Thousand Oaks; a brother, Edgardo Kaplan of Argentina; and a sister, Ana Kaplan of Argentina.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Sunday at Pierce Bros. Griffin in Thousand Oaks. Burial will follow at Valley Oaks Memorial Park in Westlake.