Eugeniusz Bodo & Tea Jazz dir. by Henryk Wars – Nitchevo ne znayu (Nic O Tobie Nie Wiem) [I Know Nothing Abort You] Slowfox (H.Wars- Polish text by E.Schlechter; Russian lyrics by unknown author) from Polish musical comedy “Włóczęgi” (1939; The Wanderers) Recorded in Russian for Aprelevskij Zavod in 1940, Soviet Russia; Re-issued by Leningradskij Zavod, 1941/42

NOTE: Eugeniusz Bodo was the most popular prewar Polish film actor, whose popularity can be compared only with that of Maurice Chevalier in France or Bing Crosby in USA. He debuted in mid 1920s as a singer and dancer in the cabarets of Łódź and Warsaw, to quickly become a very much searched for paramour character in the silent movies. In 1930s he performed on stage of the most frequented Warsaw revue theaters Morskie Oko, Qui pro Quo, Wielka Rewia, Hollywood and also performed in film comedies, sometimes 2 or 3 in a year. His performance in 1936 musical film comedy “Piętro wyżej” (Upstairs) - where he, in female guise imitating a “Polish Mae West” sings an enticing foxtrot “Sex Appeal” - will always remain one of the most bravour comedy creations in the history of Polish cinema    • Eugeniusz Bodo - Sex appeal  

In September 1939, after German assault on Poland, Eugeniusz Bodo run away from bombed Warsaw to Lwów, where after 17th Sept 1939 - when the Red Army invaded Poland from the East - he got under the Soviet occupation. Immediately he got under the supervision of the NKVD, because he had two passports: Polish and Swiss (- after his father, who was a Swiss citizen settled in Poland). In the Soviet-occupied Lwów, Eugeniusz Bodo found a job at the Tea Jazz dance orchestra, which in that time was organized and led by his friend from Warsaw, a famous Polish composer and bandleader Henryk Wars. That cooperation protected Bodo for some time, he even traveled with the band and with the group of other performers throughout Soviet Union, where Henryk Wars’ big band – promoting jazz music in USSR – became immensely popular. Alas in June 1941, almost immediately after outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Eugeniusz Bodo was arrested by NKVD under suspicion of espionage (a common accusation in every totalitarian state). After 22 months of investigation, which was carried on in a prison Lubianka in Moscow, he was finally sent to a work camp in Kotlas near Arkhangelsk, in Northern Russia. Eugeniusz Bodo died of hunger and diseases in October 1943. 70 years later, in 2011 a symbolic grave commemorating death of a great Polish actor has been erected in Kotlas in the place, where once the work camp was, by the Polish Ministry of Culture and Polish Institute in Sankt Petersburg.

This lovely Polish jazzy-song “Nic o obie nie wiem” (I Know Nothing About You) was composed in 1939 by Henryk Wars, for one of the last prewar Polish film comedies “Włoczęgi” (The Wanderers). It was recorded in Soviet Union in 1940 by Eugeniusz Bodo acc. by Tea Jazz dance orchestra conducted by Henryk Wars. However, after the arrest of Bodo in Summer 1941, his name desappears in later re-issues of this record, in 1941 or 1942. For Soviets, someone who once joined the Gulag Archipelago was erased from the memory of the living, forever.