Adam Aston - Czerwone maki na Monte Cassino, 1944 video

Adam Aston (Adolf Loewensohn) was one of three or four most popular pre-war "crooners" in Poland. His performances of the Polish as well as international hits, called in Poland with the German word, the "schlagers" - remained on Odeon, Columbia or Syrena-Electro records as masterpieces of the singing art - dramatic, strong, and sung with his stunning Jewish cantor-like tenor/baritone entirely free from any sentimental manner of the era. When in September 1939 Nazi troops invaded Poland and WWII broke out, that king of Polish "Tin Pan Alley business" managed to flee to Eastern part of Poland - in the meanwhile taken by Soviet army, who, according to Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, attacked Poland from the east as the Hitler's loyaliest ally. In those gloomy days Aston followed the way of millions of Polish citizens living there: hundreds of thousands were killed, hundreds of thousands - deported by the Soviets into deep Russia. Yet, he managed to survive again through this Polish Apocalypse and, as soon as the Nazis attacked Russia in June 1942, he joined the Polish army being formed by General Władysław Anders -- according to the quickly made pact Sikorski-Stalin -- from those of Polish officers and soldiers, who survived the Stalinist labor camps or were not massacred in Katyn -- the place of the XXth Century Polish Apocalypse in Russia. In 1943, together with the Anders' army, Aston left Soviet Union and marched to Iran, to Palestine, Tobruk & Italy, together with the Western ...