Bratislava, 4 November 2025 – The Platform, together with its Slovak partner, the Nation’s Memory Institute (Ústav pamäti národa), inaugurated the exhibition European Gulag at the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University in Bratislava on 4 November. The exhibition was introduced by its curator, Mr. Wojciech Bednarski.

The exhibition presents the system of repression, forced labour camps, and political persecution across the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. After being shown in Hungary, Albania, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Latvia, the exhibition is now being presented in Slovakia for the first time.

“When we hear the word Gulag, we think of Siberia. But the system of labour camps and repression was present throughout Central and Eastern Europe. This exhibition reminds us of our shared experience of unfreedom,” said Bednarski.

The exhibition introduces the Slovak public to 30 panels featuring archival photographs, documents, and personal stories of victims of communism. Its aim is to remind visitors that the totalitarian regimes that followed the Second World War left deep scars not only in the Soviet Union but also across many European countries.

The exhibition is open from 4 to 17 November 2025 in the Atrium of the Faculty of Arts of Comenius University (Gondova 2, Bratislava).

On 5 November, Wojciech Bednarski (PEMC), together with Jerguš Sivoš, Chairman of the Nation’s Memory Institute (Ústav pamäti národa), and Iga Raczyńska, Deputy Director of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity (ENRS), laid flowers at the Gate of Freedom Memorial in Devín, Bratislava. This act commemorated more than 400 men and women who were killed while trying to escape across the Iron Curtain to Austria between 1945 and 1989, as well as all those who suffered persecution under the communist regime.

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