Karin Stanek – The girl with the guitar

Emigration to Germany

Karin Stanek’s decision to apply for German citizenship was influenced by several factors. In December 1981, martial law was imposed in Poland. This had a particularly devastating impact on her manager, Anna Kryszkiewicz, who until then had travelled to Poland once a month to visit her ill mother. When she received news of her mother’s death in January 1982, she immediately travelled to her home city of Łódź, where she remained trapped. A short time before, Karin, under the guidance of her manager, had made the new record “Tell me”. However, under the present circumstances, without Anna’s supervision, any publicity for the launch appeared impossible. “Cory Gun” had to cancel her performances and tours. Unable to perform, she had no way of supporting herself financially. It was then that she decided to apply for status as an ethnic German repatriate. She travelled from Cologne to her mother in Wolfenbüttel, immediately registered with the authorities there, and joined a German language class. Several months later, Anna Kryszkiewicz had returned to Germany, but Karin’s new obligations put too many restrictions on her time. Together with her manager, she decided to temporarily pause her musical activities. However, soon afterwards, she met a German musician, a certain “Manfred”, who it was decided would manage her performances in the local area from that time on. For her part, Anna would take care of the television contacts. Karin Stanek again accepted an invitation to spend several months in the US, and performed in Chicago. She then worked as a singer on cruise ships. However, when she registered with a German artists’ agency and received an offer from them of singing in simple restaurants, she categorically refused.

Under these circumstances, the knowledge-hungry Karin decided to study Computer Science, which in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a completely new line of work. She finished her degree and even completed an in-house traineeship, but she would never work in the field. In her personal life, Karin Stanek had no luck in Germany. After many years in a relationship with a married man, she broke it off after pressure from the family. She lived alone in Wolfenbüttel in a three-room apartment, which with its white furniture and pastel decorations looked rather like an American home.

In her biography, which was subsequently extended with a chapter on Germany, she is quoted as saying the following:

“Many years have gone by in Germany. There have been ups and downs; my life was not always easy; I had to change; I often had to make compromises, give something up. That’s how life abroad is, and I have found my way of dealing with it. Somewhere in the depth of my being there is a trace of melancholy. Melancholy for something that has been lost. After all, even though I’m not unhappy here, I am still a foreigner. This is not my home”.[9]

Visits in Poland

It would be 15 years after Karin Stanek left Poland in 1976 before she would decide to perform as an artist again in front of a Polish audience. After the change to the system there in 1989, travelling home no longer presented a risk. When in 1991, Stanek was invited by Franciszek Walicki and the artists’ agency Bałtycka Agencja Artystyczna “BART” to take part in the concert “It’s only rock and roll – three decades of rock in Poland” (To tylko rock and roll – trzy dekady rocka w Polsce), she decided to accept. It was her first trip home after one-and-a-half decades. She set out on the journey with her mother, and was also accompanied by her manager Anna Kryszkiewicz and her partner. Karin saw her old colleagues again after many years. The atmosphere at the rehearsals before the concert was very relaxed and familiar; yet despite this, and her professionalism notwithstanding, her stage fright grew to enormous proportions. Finally, when she found herself standing on the stage in Sopot, she was so moved that she had to first collect herself. Big tears fell down her face, and the audience cried with her. Several minutes passed before Karin was able to play. Her performance of “Jimmy Joe” held the hall transfixed. The concert was just as powerful as it had been in the old days, and the audience listened to her spellbound. After the final encore, they bid her farewell with a standing ovation. This time, the press reviews were extremely positive. The local newspaper, “Głos Wybrzeża” (“Voice of the coast”), had this to say: “The biggest surprise was the performance by Karin Stanek ... Her vivacity and her unique way of moving delighted the audience. Like a teenager, full of energy and temperament, she put on a short, but wonderful show and proved that she is still the same ‘Fire Cracker’ Karin as before”.[10]

After this concert, Karin again accepted an invitation to Chicago. Her six-month tour from late 1991 to early 1992 took her from Chicago to New Jersey, and from there to New York and Toronto, before ending in Sarasota in Florida.

In 1992, she again appeared on the “forest stage” in Sopot, this time with a concert to mark her 30th anniversary as a stage performer. On stage, she was a pure bundle of energy. In the years that followed, she travelled occasionally to Poland to play concerts there. She nearly always travelled by car, each time accompanied by her manager Anna. At the same time, she returned to the stage in Germany, where she sang songs in German and English as “Cory Gun”. However, on the return journeys to Wolfenbüttel, back to Karin’s everyday life away from showbusiness, the musician didn't strike her manager as particularly happy.

Karin Stanek celebrated her 35th anniversary on stage with a concert in her home town of Bytom, which was initiated by Stefan Papierowski, a loyal fan of many years. Together with the Silesian rock and blues band Gang Olsena, she performed an energy-charged concert on the stage of the Silesian dance theatre (Śląski Teatr Tańca), now the culture centre in Bytom (Bytomskie Centrum Kultury). To mark this anniversary, the regional television studio in Katowice recorded a documentary with the rededicated title “Tato, kup mi polskie dżinsy” (“Daddy, buy me a pair of Polish jeans”). A year later, in 1998 Karin Stanek again performed in Bytom, this time on the stage in the town park. In 2004, with the band Gang Olsena, she participated in the concert to mark the town’s 750th anniversary.

Another concert where she played to a Polish audience alongside many other megastars was on Piłsudski square in Warsaw for New Year’s Eve 2000. In 2003, her manager, Anna Kryszkiewicz, returned to Poland for good. As a result, she was no longer able to drive Karin to the concerts and back home again. For Karin, this meant travelling with her guitar and other luggage, which became increasingly problematic. She still received a large number of invitations to Poland, but was soon no longer able to accept them. She appeared in Poland for the last time in 2005, in Szczecin.

From 2007 onwards, her state of health declined significantly. She no longer accepted any invitations, and became increasingly reclusive. At that time, she maintained intensive contact with her mother, who lived a few streets away. In 2011, she was taken to hospital due to acute pneumonia. Her body, which was already weakened from previous illnesses, was no longer able to cope. Karin Stanek died on 15 February 2011, at seven in the morning. On 19 February, she was buried in the Catholic cemetery in Wolfenbüttel.

[9]   Anna Kryszkiewicz: Karin Stanek..., p. 236.

[10]   “Głos Wybrzeża”, 8 July 1991.