Stefan Witas & Ork. Iwo Wesby – Z tęsknoty za dziewczyną [Longing for a girl / my violin plays con sordino) Tango z rewii “Ktoś z nas zwariował” ” [One Of Us Has Gone Mad] z teatru “Cyrulik Warszawski” (Michał Gastman “Gaston”– Marian Hemar “Harriman”) Syrena –Electro 1938 (Polish) NOTE: This record was issued one year before outbreak of the 2nd WW, when Poland was attacked almost simultaenously by its two neighbours Germany and Russia, in September 1939. As my parents rremembered, the summer months of 1939 were exceptionally hot. The seaside and rivberbank resorts on the Baltic Sea or by the Vistula, Dniestre or Niemen rivers were packed with the swimming, sunbathing and partying holiday makers. The gramophones on the terraces of the pensions and the loudspeakers on the beaches were playing the new hits. One of them was still the tango “Longing For a Girl…” which had been performed in a revue “Ktoś z nas zwariował” [One of Us Has Gone Mad] in a literary theatre ”Cyrulik Warszawski” (The Barber of Varsavia) and recorded in Feb 1938 by Stefan Witas for Syrena Records. For those listening to the lyrics written by a fine Polish poet Marian Hemar (nick “Harriman”) - about a lover who is longing for his girl and plays his violin con sordino - mysterious and exciting to the imagination were those words "con sordino". What could they mean? Some rare kind of wine? Or some other love specimen? None of these things. In musical terminology, "to play con sordino "means "with mute" and applies to both pedal and stringed instruments. But soon, some more terrible problems occurred, when Poland got invaded by two brigand neighbors on the 1st and the 17th September 1939, and the Polish nation entered the darkness of the German and the Soviet occupations, their crimes, extermination of the Poles and destruction of Poland's material heritage. Although the 2nd World War soon engulfed the entire world, Poland emerged from it as one of the most devastated countries, having lost half of its pre-war territory and approximately 12 million of its pre-war population (30%). The Polish capital Warsaw was materially annihilated in 85%, other big cities like Poznan, Gdansk in 50-60%. The pre-war industry, agriculture, and trade were almost completely destroyed. Many of the large cities in the east of Poland: Lwów, Wilno, Grodno, Łuck, Stanisławów, to name a few, were given to Stalin by Poland's western "allies": the USA and Great Britain, along with millions of Polish inhabitants living there. Only part of them managed to travel back to a changed and truncated Poland after the war. Museums were almost completely plundered, libraries burned. And what is worst: Poland - trampled and destroyed in such a way – was after the war given to Stalin as a present, by two hyper-traitors in history Roosevelt and Churchill. I think that many nations would not rise again after such a horrible mutilation. ------------------------------------------ For now, however, let's watch the last free Polish summer of 1939 with the sounds of tango coming from the loudspeakers and voice of Stefan Witas, one of the most popular singers. People are having fun, swimming, sunbathing, not knowing that wild animals are already sharpening their fangs and claws on them...