Todor Anastasov was born on September 23, 1932 in Pleven in the family of an officer of the engineering troops. During the events of September 9, 1944, his father had already been promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and later to colonel. In 1946, however, he was dismissed without the right to a pension due to conflicts with the political commander of the regiment.

In 1948, the family moved to Botevgrad, where Todor continued his high school education in conditions of great poverty. He is forced to help with the farm work while his mother teaches foreign languages, and his father, after contracting tuberculosis, works in a local darak before retiring due to illness.

In these difficult conditions, the family decided to seek salvation outside Bulgaria. In August 1951, they left for the village of Sitovo in the Rhodopes, but due to bad weather and hesitation on the part of their assistant, the escape attempt failed.

At school, Todor is well received because he helps his classmates with math. Although he graduated with honors, he was not allowed to take the candidate exams three times. After these failures, he began courses for microbiological laboratory assistants at the Academy of Medicine.

In November 1951, together with two friends, he made an unsuccessful attempt to escape to Greece, but one of them fell ill and the three returned. One of his companions was subsequently arrested, and a search of his quarters found a diary detailing the escape plan. Todor was detained for 51 days and subjected to psychological pressure during the investigation.

He was sent without sentence to the Belene camp for his part in the escape attempt and spent 7 months and 8 days there until the camp was closed after Stalin's death in 1953. In the camp he contracted dry pleurisy and met Nikola Daskalov and Yordan Achkov, who remain his friends for life.

After being released from Belene, he managed to graduate in physics in 1960. His professional path began as a teacher in Pernik, where he met the former cultural educator from the Belene camp, Again, whose son he taught.

Throughout his life, Todor is haunted by troubles related to his past. After teaching, he began working in the laboratory of the Copper Factory in Sofia and in 1963 joined the Institute of Electrical Industry at the BAS thanks to the patronage of Prof. Nikola Belopitov, who knew Todor's father (testified in his defense during the trials against Gen. Zaimov). There he managed to become a research assistant – “for mutual benefit“. After Belopitov rests, he goes to the Institute of Metal Ceramics. While the professor was alive, Todor received opportunities for business trips to Berlin and Moscow. After Belopitov's death, however, in 1973 he was refused a business trip to Leipzig.

After the fall of the totalitarian regime, Todor Anastasov became the chairman of the Union of the Repressed in Bulgaria. He died at the end of December 2023 at the age of 91.