The ERKA Cabaret will stage the performance “Love Will Forgive You Everything” on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 6:30 PM at the Polish Cultural Foundation at 177 Broadway in Clark, New Jersey. Tickets are $25 available at the door. The show transports viewers to the intimate European cabaret of the 1930s.
Everyone knows this song. Very few know who it was written for.
In the 1933 film “A Spy in a Mask,” Hanka Ordonówna plays a cabaret artist who works for foreign intelligence. She seduces the son of a Polish scientist to steal his father’s invention. After a passionate kiss, she steps onto the stage and sings—as if asking for forgiveness for the betrayal she has just committed.
That is how “Love Will Forgive You Everything” was created: music by Henryk Wars, lyrics by Julian Tuwim, who signed them with the pseudonym Oldlen. Poland has been singing it for ninety-three years at weddings and around tables, usually having no idea that in its original form, it is a spy’s confession.
On Saturday, September 26, it will resound in Clark, New Jersey.
An Evening at the Polish Cultural Foundation
The ERKA Cabaret is staging a performance under that very title—a musical and theatrical show that recreates the intimate atmosphere of 1930s European cabaret. It is not a concert with a master of ceremonies, but a story about the people who created that stage.
The organizers emphasize something worth keeping in mind when planning your Saturday evening: “You don’t have to speak Polish to experience the intimate atmosphere of a 1930s European cabaret”. You can bring an American husband, a neighbor, or children who understand every second word in Polish without any worries. The music and mood translate themselves.
Who the Woman on the Poster Was
Maria Anna Pietruszyńska was born in 1902 in Warsaw, into a railway worker’s family. She died in 1950 in Beirut. What happened in between would be enough for three lifetimes.
She was discovered by Fryderyk Jarossy, the artistic director of the legendary Warsaw cabaret Qui Pro Quo—a man who guided her career and, as people in town said, was also involved with her personally. Under his watchful eye, the railway worker’s daughter became Ordonka, the “Vamp Woman,” and the biggest star of pre-war variety shows.
In March 1931, she married Count Michał Tyszkiewicz. Both knew exactly what they were doing: the unequal match between an aristocrat and a cabaret singer caused the biggest marital scandal of the Second Polish Republic. Warsaw talked about it for months.
Then came the war—and that part of the biography is completely different.
From the Stage to the Gulag
After the Soviet occupation of Vilnius, Ordonówna and her husband were arrested by the NKVD. The Count was deported deep into the Soviet Union. She was placed in a women’s labor camp in Uzbekistan.
She was only freed by the “amnesty” following the Sikorski–Majski agreement of July 30, 1941. She reported to General Anders’ army in Tashkent and was given a task: caring for the Polish civilian population in Central Asia. She took care of the orphans above all. She organized an orphanage for them in Vrevskoye in Uzbekistan, and later helped transport the children through Bombay all the way to Beirut.
She wrote a book about them. “Wandering Children” was published in 1948 in Beirut—under the pseudonym Weronika Hort, so no one would read it as the memoirs of a star.
She died two years later, in the same city, at the age of forty-eight.
Who Plays Whom
On stage in Clark, characters from that world will appear—Ordonówna, Jarossy, Count Tyszkiewicz, and dancer and choreographer Tacjanna Wysocka.
- Hanka Ordonówna – Anna Kucay
- Zofia Bajkowska – Ola Watras
- Tacjanna Wysocka – Edyta Sitarz
- Count Michał Tyszkiewicz – Andrzej Kuszewski
- Fryderyk Jarossy – Robert Pawlikowski
- Director – Tadeusz Nowak
- Pianist – Alicja Kenig
- Stagehand – Antoni Wilczek
Musical arrangement and song adaptations: Łukasz Pliś. Live accompaniment on the piano.
Practical Information
- When: Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 6:30 PM
- Where: Polish Cultural Foundation, 177 Broadway, Clark, NJ 07066
- Tickets: $25 per person, available directly at the door
- Contact: [email protected]
