Stefania Perzanowska

“Who is doctor Perzanowska? A woman, a phenomenal doctor…It’s difficult to imagine: when they brought us in January 1943, field V at Majdanek was particularly frozen, covered in ice. There was no water because the well was frozen. There were empty barracks, some kind of paper pallets which were then stuffed with paper shavings… [...] On this empty field, without water, from nothing, the doctor created the revier, an infirmary - a real hospital: with beds, nurses, a nursing school which Wanda Ossowska led” - recalled Krystyna Tarasiewicz

Despite the lack of medicines, medical equipment and proper conditions for treatment, Perzanowska not only tried to help her patients, but also used the infirmary barracks to hide some extremely exhausted females or those sentenced to death by the SS. During the evacuation of the camp, she was deported to Auschwitz together with the hospital staff and the patients. Perzanowska was also a prisoner of the Ravensbrück concentration camp and its branch in Neustadt-Glewe. In all these places she brought help to the sick.

Her attitude aroused widespread respect among the fellow prisoners and particularly the staff of the infirmary. Another inmate Jadwiga Lipska-Węgrzecka, said about her: “Doctor Perzanowska performed miracles because she tried her best and succeeded to run our revier - in these camp conditions - almost like an ordinary hospital of the freedom world, that is, by following all regulations and rules enforced in hospitals. Our main setback was the lack of medicines.”

The exhibition boards present Perzanowska’s biography, richly illustrated with her family photographs. Perzanowska is also the author of memoirs from Majdanek: Gdy myśli do Majdanka wracają (When thoughts return to Majdanek). The display cases contain medical devices and medicine from the time the district was in operation, original documents, including secret letters. Among the presented artefacts there were also some mascots which the doctor secretly sent from the camp to her daughter.