“Strange is this world, well it still seems there is so far so much evil”… On the 16 February 1939, Czesław Niemen, artist and composer, one of the most prominent representatives of rock music in Poland, was born in Stare Wasiliszki. He was one of the most prominent representatives of rock music in Poland.

Niemen, or rather Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki dealt with music from an early age. As a young boy, he was active in school and church choirs, where, apart from singing, he also played the organ. As a teenager, he began piano lessons at the Pedagogical Lyceum in Grodno (today’s Hrodna) and attended music school, which he failed to complete due to numerous absences from classes.

In 1958, he and his family were resettled in post-war Poland as part of the deportation of Poles from the Eastern Borderlands, and he probably avoided being called up to the Soviet Army. He married Maria Klauzunik in the same year and eventually settled in Sopot, where his daughter Maria was born in 1960. Despite the initial stability, the marriage did not stand the test of time.

In 1962, after achieving success at the Young Talent Festival in Szczecin, he embarked on a tour of the country with the band Czerwono-Czarni as a reward, and then started working with the band Niebiesko-Czarni. In December 1963, he and the band performed together on the stage of the Olympia concert hall in Paris and at that time, he adopted his artistic pseudonym – Niemen.

Together with the band, he performed, among others, before Marlene Dietrich’s concerts in the Congress Hall in Warsaw, where he performed his song “Do you remember me”, which the actress included on the album with her own lyrics “Mutter, hast du mir vergeben”.

In 1966, he co-founded the band Akwarele, with which he recorded the groundbreaking album ” Strange is this World”, featuring his big hit of the same title. The song quickly gained popularity, becoming a youth anthem in the late 1960s.

In 1975, he married the model Małgorzata Krzewińska, with whom he had two daughters. He was musically active throughout his life. Together with his bands (e.g. Grupa Niemen, Niemen Aerolit), he played concerts all over Europe, setting new trends in rock music.

He died on 17 January 2004. He was buried at the Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw.