Anastasija Gulej was born on 12 December 1925 in a village not far from Kiev in what is now Ukraine. Instead of beginning her studies as planned, she was deported to forced labour at the age of 17 and later imprisoned in several concentration camps - including Bergen-Belsen, where she was finally liberated.
Since the 1970s, Anastasija Gulej has been involved in associations of former concentration camp prisoners: first in the Kiev section of former concentration camp prisoners, which organisationally belonged to the Soviet Committee of War Veterans, and later in the Ukrainian Association of Fighters of Anti-Fascist Resistance (OBAS), which was founded after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In autumn 1995, around 50 years after her Liberation, Anastasija Gulej finally visited Bergen-Belsen again for the first time with 15 other OBAS members. From this point onwards, she acted as an important liaison between the memorial and the Bergen-Belsen survivors in Ukraine. Anastasija Gulej actively campaigns for remembrance: Among other things, she collects addresses of survivors and sends out questionnaires at her own expense about the persecution of her fellow survivors.
Numerous other visits to the Bergen-Belsen memorial followed, including a five-and-a-half-hour interview on her life story. We look forward to further visits from her and wish Anastasija Gulej all the best for her 100th birthday.
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Anastasija Gulej in conversation with students who worked on the "Red Corner" exhibition about political prisoners in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 23 April 2017. © SnG -
Representatives of the survivors of Bergen-Belsen from six nations present the jointly written "Legacy of the Survivors", Bergen-Belsen Memorial, 30 November 2012. Anastasija Gulej (2nd from right) represented the Ukrainian Organisation of Fighters of the Anti-Fascist Resistance. © SnG