On 23 August 2026, the exhibition Voices That Never Fall Silent opened at the State Museum at Majdanek. The exhibition presents the stories of eight former prisoners of the German Nazi concentration camp, including Dr Stefania Perzanowska – the protagonist of this year’s ENRS “Remember. August 23” campaign. The European Network Remembrance and Solidarity was represented at the opening by Director Rafał Rogulski and Bartosz Dziewanowski-Stefańczyk, coordinator of the campaign.
The exhibition brings together the stories of Danuta Brzosko-Mędryk, Jerzy Kwiatkowski, Stefania Perzanowska, Jadwiga Ankiewicz, Bolesław Burski, Zacheusz Pawlak, Jan Michalak and Andrzej Stanisławski – former prisoners of Majdanek whose testimonies offer different perspectives on the experience of German occupation, imprisonment and survival.
Their stories are told through memoirs and testimonies, photographs from family collections, documents, personal belongings and audiovisual materials. Some of the accounts were written secretly while their authors were still imprisoned; others were recorded shortly after the war or many years later. Together, they show how individual testimony can preserve experiences that extend beyond a single biography and become part of collective memory.
One of the eight figures presented in the exhibition is Dr Stefania Perzanowska, physician, resistance member and prisoner of Majdanek. During her imprisonment, she organised a hospital for women prisoners and continued to provide medical care under extreme conditions. Her story is also presented in a dedicated audiovisual installation prepared by ENRS.
Perzanowska is the protagonist of the 2026 edition of ENRS’s “Remember. August 23” campaign, marking the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Her biography connects the histories of Nazi German and Soviet repression: while she was imprisoned at Majdanek, she did not know that her husband, Dr Zygmunt Perzanowski, had been murdered by the NKVD as one of the victims of the Katyn massacre.
The opening of Voices That Never Fall Silent took place on 23 August, giving the event a particular symbolic dimension. The exhibition was officially opened by Tomasz Kranz, Director of the State Museum at Majdanek, and Rafał Rogulski, Director of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity.
In his remarks, Rafał Rogulski spoke about the significance of 23 August as a shared European day of remembrance and about the importance of preserving individual testimonies as a way of understanding the consequences of totalitarian regimes.
The opening was followed by a discussion devoted to family memory and the role of authentic testimonies of people who experienced the German Nazi occupation and imprisonment at Majdanek. Among the participants were Andrzej Korczak, grandson of Stefania Perzanowska; Konrad Michalak, grandson of former Majdanek prisoner Jan Michalak; and Michał Nalewski, editor-in-chief at Prószyński Media. The discussion was moderated by Marta Grudzińska, historian at the State Museum at Majdanek and co-curator of the exhibition.
The presence of Stefania Perzanowska’s story in Voices That Never Fall Silent creates a natural link between the exhibition and this year’s “Remember. August 23” campaign. Both initiatives place individual experience at the centre of remembrance and ask how personal testimony can continue to speak to subsequent generations.
The exhibition Voices That Never Fall Silent is presented at the State Museum at Majdanek in Polish and English.