“Voices That Never Fall Silent and Will Never Be Silent for as Long as We Remember Them”

On 23 August, we commemorated the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes in a special way. We presented a new exhibition at the Museum’s Visitor Service Centre and invited descendants of former prisoners to share their family memories of its protagonists – former Majdanek prisoners who recorded their testimonies.

“Voices That Never Fall Silent" Exhibition

The exhibition opening was initiated by Tomasz Kranz, Director of the State Museum at Majdanek. In his speech, he emphasised, among other things, that although the protagonists of the exhibition came from different backgrounds and experienced the reality of the camp in different ways, they were united by one idea: “They wanted to bear witness to what they had experienced – for themselves, for their fellow prisoners, for those who died and were murdered here, and also for their families,” he said.

Magdalena Petruk, co-author of the exhibition, in turn pointed out that one of its fundamental aims is to take the protagonists’ stories beyond their experience of Majdanek: “We have also placed them in the broader context of their biographies – how they lived before the war and after liberation – so as not to perpetuate their image solely as victims of Majdanek. These particular individuals are especially important to us because, in recent years, the Museum has published their testimonies.”

Representatives of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity also spoke at the event – Director Rafał Rogulski and Deputy Head of the Research Department Bartosz Dziewanowski-Stefańczyk. In their speeches, they focused on the protagonists of the “Remember. 23 August” campaign, whose stories are brought to a wider audience through films and commemorative pins. The central figure of this year’s campaign is Stefania Perzanowska, a Polish doctor who established a hospital in the women’s field of the Majdanek concentration camp.

Memories of Grandmother and Grandfather

In the second part of the event, we invited representatives of the families of former prisoners to take part in a discussion. Andrzej Korczak, grandson of Dr Stefania Perzanowska, and Konrad Michalak, grandson of Jan Michalak, shared their stories. Their accounts allowed us to look at the lives of the protagonists from a completely different perspective and learn, for example, how their grandparents coped with post-camp trauma, whether they shared stories of Majdanek at home, and how their wartime experiences shaped their character.

The discussion also featured Michał Nalewski, Editor-in-Chief of Prószyński Media, one of the largest publishing houses on the Polish book market. Thanks to the cooperation between the State Museum at Majdanek and the publishing house, authentic testimonies of former prisoners of KL Lublin are reaching bookshelves across Poland in a new and appealing format for readers. During the discussion, we asked him, among other things, why the publishing house had decided to cooperate with the Museum and undertake a publishing project devoted to such a difficult subject. “This is an unprecedented series on the Polish publishing market, and our role as a publishing house is to leave some kind of mark on the bookshelves every year,” Nalewski said.

The protagonists of the “Voices That Do Not Fall Silent” project are Danuta Brzosko-Mędryk, Jerzy Kwiatkowski, Stefania Perzanowska, Jadwiga Ankiewicz, Bolesław Burski, Zacheusz Pawlak, Jan Michalak and Andrzej Stanisławski. Each of them recorded their memories of the camp.

All the publications are available for purchase at the Museum’s online bookstore and at our sales point in the Visitor Service Centre.