13/08/2026
Dla społeczności Wydziału Lekarskiego Warszawskiego Uniwersytetu Medycznego tegoroczna kampania „Pamiętaj. 23 sierpnia” ma szczególny wymiar. Jej bohaterką jest dr Stefania Perzanowska - lekarka, która w niemieckim obozie koncentracyjnym na Majdanku zorganizowała szpital i niosła pomoc współwięźniom.
Jej historia skłania do refleksji nad istotą zawodu lekarza, odpowiedzialnością za drugiego człowieka i granicami decyzji medycznych podejmowanych w warunkach terroru.
Pamięć o lekarzach, którzy pozostali wierni wartościom medycyny w najbardziej nieludzkich warunkach, jest również częścią naszej akademickiej tożsamości.
Presenting you this year's hero of our campaign: Dr Stefania Perzanowska (1896–1974).
📖 Stefania began studying medicine at the University of Warsaw, but the First World War interrupted her training, she left to serve as a doctor with the Polish Military Organisation and the Voluntary Women's Legion during the fighting for Poland's independence. She completed her degree in 1926, built a career in internal medicine in Warsaw and Vienna, and eventually settled in Radom with her husband, ophthalmologist Dr Zygmunt Perzanowski, where she headed the internal medicine department at the Municipal Hospital.
◾️ When the Second World War broke out in 1939, both were mobilised as reserve officers. Zygmunt was taken prisoner by Soviet forces and murdered by the NKVD in Katyń in 1940. Stefania, unaware of his fate, organised medical aid for refugees before returning to Radom, where she joined the underground resistance - training underground medical personnel and running a secret Home Army contact point from her own apartment.
◾ Arrested by the Gestapo in November 1942, she was deported to the German N**i concentration camp Majdanek in January 1943. There, in barracks with no windows, no beds and no medicine, she organised a hospital for women prisoners almost from nothing - insisting, against German indifference, "We must have a hospital." She trained fellow prisoners as nurses, falsified medical records to protect the sick and persecuted from selection, and hid a Jewish newborn in the hospital to save its life.
She survived the death march to Ravensbrück concentration camp and further imprisonment at Neustadt-Glewe, liberated in May 1945. She returned to Radom, resumed medical practice, founded a nursing school, and opened one of the first free clinics for former concentration camp prisoners and their families.
In 1970, she published her memoir, “Gdy myśli do Majdanka wracają” (When My Thoughts Return to Majdanek), giving voice to the hospital and the women who built it alongside her.
🔗 Learn more about Dr Stefania Perzanowska here:
https://youtu.be/N_dn927Vubo
🤝 This year's campaign is run together with our partners: the State Museum at Majdanek (Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku / State Museum at Majdanek), the Medical University of Warsaw (Warszawski Uniwersytet Medyczny), and the City of Vilnius (Vilniaus miesto savivaldybė), with media patronage from Dzieje.pl (dzieje.pl).
