Maria Zhuk

born in the village of Begatsch, Ukraine in 1924, experienced the Golodomor famine in 1932-1933. Her father was in a gulag from 1939-1941 and committed suicide in 1945. Her mother died during the war. In 1942, Zhuk was deported to Germany and forced to work in the Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps as well as other places. She returned to the Ukraine in 1945 and was put under KGB surveillance. The painter and mother of four published her memoirs in Soviet and Ukrainian newspapers. She lives in Begatsch, Ukraine.