Anastasia Gulej, 96, was moved to the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and spoke at an event to mark the 77th anniversary of its liberation by British and Canadian troops
Anastasia Gulej from Kyiv at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorial
Anastasia Gulej from Kyiv at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp memorial
A 96-year-old Holocaust survivor from Ukraine who was in Auschwitz with Anne Frank has said after surviving Stalin and Hitler, she will survive Putin too.
Anastasia Gulej has had to flee to Germany from Ukraine after Russia invaded her country in February and she spoke at a memorial service for Holocaust survivors.
After being sent to Auschwitz she was later moved to the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and spoke at an event to mark the 77th anniversary of its liberation by British and Canadian troops.
Gulej talked of a "genocide against the Ukrainians" and compared the Russians to the Nazis, saying: "I have no words for what the Hitler admirers from the Kremlin did in Bucha and Mariupol."
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in April 1945
The Liberation of Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in April 1945
She added: "I survived Hitler, survived Stalin and I will survive this a******e Putin too!"
The 96-year-old Holocaust survivor was sent by the Nazis to the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, in January 1945, at the age of 19.
Gulej was there at the same time as Anne Frank, who died in the camp at the age of 15, in February 1945 and whose now-famous diary was published posthumously as a book.
She was later taken to the Bergen-Belsen camp and remained there until it was liberated four months later, on April 15, 1945.
At the memorial service, she said: "I can't forget a single minute that I spent here waiting for death."
And speaking about the moment the camp was liberated, she said: "I didn't even have enough strength to feel joy."
Gulej had actually wanted to stay in her homeland after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, when Russia invaded its peaceful neighbour on Thursday, 24th February.
But because her house was right next to an airport, a prime military target, it was with a heavy heart that she took the difficult decision to flee with her son Wassyl and her daughter Walentyna.
A biography of the 96-year-old was expected to be published last month, but it has now been supplemented with another chapter, one about her escape from Ukraine.
The Auschwitz concentration camp was made up of over 40 concentration and extermination camps, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland from 1940 to 1945.
Bergen-Belsen was originally a prisoner-of-war camp and was partially converted into a concentration camp in 1943 in what is today Lower Saxony in northern Germany.
Alleged Russian war crimes committed in Ukrainian cities and towns such as Mariupol and Bucha are being investigated by the International Criminal Court.
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