Poland’s lower house of parliament passed a resolution in September adding Fogg to the list of figures officially commemorated in 2026.
Fogg's lyrical baritone was one of the best-known voices of 20th-century Polish music, associated with classics such as Ta ostatnia niedziela (That Last Sunday), and songs that became part of Warsaw’s musical identity.
Polish lawmakers have designated 2026 a Year of Mieczysław Fogg. Photo: PAP/CAF/Jan Tymiński
Festival director and music historian Wojciech Dąbrowski described him as “an entertainment phenomenon and one of the biggest stars of Polish song, an icon of 20th-century culture.”
Dąbrowski said Fogg built his own style in the interwar period and stayed with it through a career that lasted more than six decades.
He kept performing until he was 86, Dąbrowski said, calling him the world’s oldest active professional singer at the time.
Dąbrowski also pointed to the scale of his output, saying Fogg recorded about 2,000 songs and had more than 3,000 in his repertoire, giving an estimated 16,000 concerts.
Mieczysław Fogg (1901-1990) was among the most popular Polish 20th-century singers. He started his career well before World War II and performed almost until his death, giving more than 16,000 concerts at home and abroad. Photo: Magdalena Kubicka
He was twice voted Poland’s most popular singer in nationwide Polish Radio polls, in 1937 and 1958, and his prewar recording of Ta ostatnia niedziela sold about 100,000 copies, a major figure for the time.
Born Mieczysław Fogiel in Warsaw on May 30, 1901, he grew up near the Old Town, the son of a railway engineer.
He later adopted the stage name Fogg and began his career singing in church choirs before joining the celebrated Dana Ensemble, a male vocal group that toured widely across Europe and performed in the United States.
Less widely known, historians and relatives have said, is Fogg’s wartime record.
He was involved in the Polish underground, used the nom de guerre “Ptaszek,” and during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising he gave more than 100 concerts for insurgents and civilians.
He was wounded three times and received Polish military decorations including the Cross of Valor. His armband from the uprising is held by the Warsaw Rising Museum.
Fogg was also recognized for helping Jews during the German occupation of Poland, when aiding Jews was punishable by death.
In a statement written for the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw on March 14, 1989, he described several cases of assistance and shelter, including help given to friends and acquaintances seeking to escape the Warsaw Ghetto.
In his memoir, Fogg described the arrival at his home in 1943 of the wife and child of his friend Ivo Wesby, a composer and conductor whose real name was Ignacy Singer, after they escaped the ghetto during its liquidation.
“They were homeless and did not know what to do,” he recalled, adding that he offered them shelter.
He later wrote that Wesby also made it out of the ghetto and that Fogg hid the family for a period, then found them another apartment and helped arrange false documents.
Fogg said his home was also used for clandestine classes, a common form of underground education under German occupation, and that this limited his ability to hide people for long periods.
In his 1989 statement, he listed other examples of aid, including providing food and money to people in hiding and assisting acquaintances who tried to cross borders or return to the ghetto.
Asked about those actions in an interview in 1989, Fogg dismissed any suggestion of heroism.
“Whoever was in need had to be helped,” he said. “Every misfortune requires support. Especially this kind. The ghetto, can you imagine.”
On October 26, 1989, Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, awarded Fogg the title Righteous Among the Nations, a distinction given to non-Jews who helped save Jews during the Holocaust.
He died on September 3, 1990, at the age of 89, and did not collect the medal in person.
His great-grandson Michał Fogg, who has worked to preserve the singer’s legacy through the Mieczysław Fogg Retro Foundation, said the medal was accepted by three generations of the family.
Mieczysław Fogg, pictured in 1974. Photo: PAP/Zbigniew Wdowiński
Fogg’s songs have remained part of Polish culture across political eras, and his voice is closely associated with Warsaw's cultural identity.
The nationwide Mieczysław Fogg Retro Song Festival will take place as usual in September and will be packed with events linked to the singer, his great-grandson said.
He said the program will include a major exhibition at the Museum of Polish History focusing on the story of Polish music, as well as a project with the Mazovian Institute of Culture to reissue recordings in their original format.
The plan is to release the music again on 10-inch vinyl records, matching the kind of discs once produced by Fogg Record, founded by Fogg and Czesław Porębski in 1946 with assistance from Ivo Wesby. The label operated until 1951.
Fogg is buried at Warsaw's Bródno Cemetery.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, polskieradio.pl