Jerzy Poglodzinski: Poolman With A Past
This story originally appeared in The Collegian and was written by student Jessica Brecker
Like the lead character Winston Smith in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” Alumnus Jerzy Poglodzinski, having been beaten to a point of incomprehension, was about to rat out his friends. However, heroes are not rats and neither is Poglodzinski. Behind a friendly smile and blue eyes, as glimmering as the pool at LACC he kept clean for 25 years, is a history no book could ever tell.
“Blood was coming out my ears. I was about to name names of my friends. I don’t know why [the guard] stopped, but he did,” Poglodzinski said. “The guard said, ‘Ah forget it, this guy is never going to talk, enough with him’, I was lucky.”
Jerzy was born 67 years ago in the small town of Govin, Poland, a region he describes as multiethnic, housing numerous Poles, Germans, Greeks, and Russians. After World War II, Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, and was governed by Communist rule from late 1944 to 1989. He recalls a somewhat uneventful childhood in which he went to school and obeyed his parents. When it came time for secondary school, he attended a “Technikum,” a Polish technical trade school. College delayed his draft into the army, but not for long, as he was required to report to duty directly after graduation.
“Everybody was drafted. You could do two years in the army or seven years in prison,” he said, calling his time in the military boring. “I didn’t like to be a soldier. I didn’t want to be a policeman or something like that. I do not like tight supervision; I resent it. I don’t want to be told what to do, [or] how to do [it]. I hate it.”
Afterwards, Jerzy found work designing construction machinery. It was satisfactory, if not mundane work, but it was during this time that he found friends and fun outside of work.
“We had a good time, we had parties,” Poglodzinski said. “Young people don’t care about presidents; what they think, [or] what they do.”
However, by 1976, oppression had reached new heights and as food was becoming harder to come by, it became too much for him to ignore.
“Somehow I got access to printed material … and got into politics,” Poglodzinski said.
He says he was advocating for “justice, for openness, for the right to speak out, for the right to not be trampled by the boots, [and] for the right not to be spit on.”
He does not want to talk about the details of his operations, but he does say there were underground meetings and his friends were being arrested.
“I got some guys following me; secret police,” Poglodzinski said. “At that time I’d say I was basically getting ready to be a leader.”
In 1980, when food prices increased once again, Labor Activist Lech Walesa set out on a crusade to change the world. In September 1980, he led Solidarity, the first independent, self-governing trade union in Poland. In only 15 months, membership numbers soared to 9 million people, a quarter of the population of Poland at the time. Poglodzinski was one of those members.
However, progress was slow, and according to Poglodzinski, the situation took a turn for the worse. In December 1981, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, first secretary of the Polish Communist Party imposed martial law. Solidarity leaders were arrested and the organization was driven underground, where it remained until 1989.
“I’m always trying to stay free, that is all. It is not always easy,” Poglodzinski said. “The KGB killed a lot of people, anyone with potential to be anti-communism.”
The KGB, or Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, served as internal security, intelligence bureau, and secret police for the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. Poglodzinski was captured and imprisoned from Dec. 13, 1982 to Dec. 3, 1983. He also claims to have been subjected to torture in an effort to get him to surrender the names of fellow activists. When these tactics failed to get Jerzy to talk, he was released, but he did not feel free.
“My friends were disappearing,” Poglodzinski said. “I had two choices; it was very clear to me. Stay and live in fear and probably be killed, or go to a new country where I didn’t know anyone, or how it worked there, or much of the language.”
Poglodzinski said that he decided the American Embassy was his best chance. Two weeks later, he was given a green card and a plane ticket to Los Angeles, paid for by Amnesty International. When he arrived at LAX, Amnesty International was not there to meet him, nor was anyone else. With no money or prospects, he found a Polish Catholic church on Wilton and Adams in Los Angeles. The church gave him $400 to get him started. To pay them back, he said, he became a loyal member and went to church almost every Sunday.
“I was happy nobody’s following me,” said Poglodzinski of that time. “I wouldn’t disappear…and that will make someone very happy!”
Fortunately for City College, he was just unhappy enough with his career to enroll as a student, earning an associate of arts degree in 1989, the same year Communist rule was finally struck down in his home country. After earning his degree, he decided he liked LACC so much that he wanted to work here. One job he did not find boring was the one he held for 25 years, keeping City College’s pool clean for the students to enjoy.
“My English was shaky, but they asked me if I knew anything about cleaning swimming pools,” Poglodzinski said. “I said no, but in three months I will be an expert!”
And he was, transforming a green swamp like body of water into a sparkling clean blue inviting one. He claims he would sometimes arrive as early as 3 a.m. just to make sure the water was warmed to a comfortable temperature.
“There have not been any swim class cancellations due to equipment failure or pool water conditions this school year,” said swim instructor Gail Frankes Sides in a 1992 letter to Vice President of Administration Nick Tan. “It has been sometime since someone as competent and reliable as Mr. Poglodzinski has held the [pool man] position.”
Poglodzinski does not consider himself a hero. However, the medal he received from his home country four years ago says otherwise.
“I am ashamed,” he says of the award. “It looks interesting, but I don’t really care.”
There is one award Poglodzinski says he does cares about. He is proud of the New Visions Award for Outstanding and Dedicated Service that City College awarded him on May 10, 1994.
He is also very proud of the multiple letters of recommendation and thanks he has received throughout the years from many professors as well as the Team Leader Deputy Richard Pfeiffer, and former Kinesiology Department Chairman Daniel P. Cowgill.
“Jerzy is a quiet, self-assured person, who strives for personal excellence as well as wholeness,” wrote Kinesiology Department Chairman Daniel P. Cowgill on Poglodzinski’s retirement last December. “He sets a wonderful example for young people to emulate.”
