Jan Czekajewski
Musings of a Rebellious Emigrant
All Illustrations
© 2012 by Jan
Czekajewski
All rights reserved
ISBN
978-0-615-71552-0
This edition
published by Lifetouch
1371 SR 598
Galion, OH 44833
Distributed by Jan Czekajewski
950 N. Hague Ave.
Columbus, OH
43204-2121
Printed and bound in
the United States
Copy Editing provided
by Ms. Jaime Sloan Sabourin
Pagination &
Design provided by: Mr. Christopher Adams
Introduction
Jan Czekajewski was born in Poland
in 1934. In his book author recalls some
stories from his life in three countries where he lived, communistic Poland,
Sweden and US. This book is not a diary, although he tried to keep stories
related to advancing time. Because it is not a diary, stories are told as
remembered. Some are hilarious some other sad. In fact the last story in his
book was not his own. It was written by his friend, a Polish Jew, Stefan
Ehrlich, who survived the holocaust in Lvov ghetto and who gave Jan, his own
unpublished stories, before his death. One could say that this book is an
assembly of vignettes which give readers an opportunity to see life of an
enterprising rebel, as Jan always was, in different systems and in different
countries. He is not hiding his shortcomings and occasionally his personal life
was turbulent, at best. He tell about setbacks too without a bitterness and
with a degree of humor. The one thing for sure this book is not pompous attempt
to glorify himself. He is open about his own shortcomings which is a rare
phenomenon in autobiographical sketches. It is a kind of Horatio Alger’s story
of poor emigrant, although educated, who comes to US and builds, facing
unemployment, a successful company, Columbus Instruments, located in Columbus,
Ohio. All his life he relied on his own resources. This lack of debt makes
Columbus Instruments outstanding company in American business, which is now
drowning in the debt ridden crises. When asked how he would describe his
strength, he gives following advice to young people:
“If you like to advance from poverty and mediocrity, never
allow others to convince you that your ideas are foolish. Try them yourself.
Change them if needed. When looking at
my own strength, I must admit that it was not a great memory, nor precision or
tenacity, but an imagination. On the dreams I built my carrier.”
The title of this book tells that
Jan Czekajewski was through all his life a rebellious individual. This
individualistic attitude, entrepreneurial spirit let him survive in many
difficult conditions in communistic Poland and in US. Now he tells how
benefited from it.
Table of Contents
Where I come from
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1979 - My father Franciszek
Czekajewski with my son, Richard. The home where I grew up is on the left.
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The coal stove in my kitchen
where I grew up in Poland.
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For 14 years I was the only child, before my
brother Adam and then sister Anna were born. After finishing high school I
moved to the larger town of Wroclaw (before the war it was known as Breslau),
where my Aunt Otylia Woyczynska was living with her husband and two children
Wojbor and Zofia. My aunt was a high school math teacher and fortunately
recognized my potential as a future engineer. For two summers, she tutored me
in math with the aim of passing the competitive entrance exam to the
Polytechnic Institute. In 1952 I was admitted to the university and studied
electronic instrumentation. In my third year I started working as an assistant
at the Institute of Radio Broadcasting (by wire), chaired by Professor Stefan Bincer.
I graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in 1958 with a master’s degree in
Electronic Engineering. In 1960 I went to Uppsala, Sweden for the first time as
an exchange student. While there, I obtained a position as an assistant in the
Electronics Department at the Institute of Physics at Uppsala University. I
went to Sweden twice more in 1962 and in 1965, also working for Uppsala
University while there. Shortly before
my departure to the U.S., I received a Ph.D. for my contributions to the electronic
measurements of non-electrical phenomena.
At that time traveling abroad, especially to so-called
capitalist countries, was wrought with troubles. I describe these troubles in
the following pages of this book. Younger generations of readers as well as
those living in the Western Democracies may have difficulty understanding these
situations.
In Uppsala I started a one-person company,
Uppsala Instruments. In 1968 I received an invitation to visit Alaska University
in Fairbanks and obtained an immigrant status in the U.S. Unfortunately, the living
conditions in Alaska and meager pay forced me to leave—first to Canada and then
to Columbus, Ohio where I got a job in a small company—Brun Sensor Systems. After
this company went bankrupt I decided to start another one-person company called
Columbus Instruments. Now, in 2012,
Columbus Instruments will be 42 years old, much larger and still prosperous.
The story of my personal life is also
complicated. Shortly after graduating
from college I was married to Elisabeth, my girlfriend during my studies. This
marriage did not last long. In fact, it ended before it began. My second wife Zofia
Krolikowska was a physician who emigrated with me to Sweden and later to the U.S.
We have two children, Richard and Tina, who were both born in the U.S.
Unfortunately, Zofia became ill with a serious mental disorder, schizophrenia. We
divorced before her disease became obvious. Nevertheless, I have supported her
for the last 30 years. For the last 20 years I’ve been living with Laura. Our
marriage provides me with needed stability and fulfillment. Now that you know
the outline of my life, let’s get to my stories. I hope these are not boring.
Why did I write this book?
As time went by, some events of my life
resisted fading memory. In some instances, I changed the names of the living
people, whenever I considered them less important than the situations in which
they were involved. Maybe these were
events that left a lasting impression on my subconscious, or maybe I repeated
these stories a few times to other people and are therefore still vivid in my
memory? I’m writing to pass the stories
of my adventurous life to the next generation. I write it now in English as
neither my employees nor my children are fluent in Polish. Maybe it is too late.
It could be that the next generation will have difficulty identifying with my
life and my adventures.
The next generation may not understand the difficulties
I encountered to escape the grip of Communism where each man was considered the
property of the state and nothing could be done without permission from the
bureaucratic state. This book is not a memoir that keeps rigor of the dates, as
I did not keep a journal of my life. Therefore, it can be read in random order.
Each chapter is a story in and of itself. For English-speaking readers it may
be interesting how I achieved relative financial success without money or startup
capital. I was not a hero fighting the
oppressive Communist regime, as many did. I just tried, as the majority of
Poles at that time did, to live in it without joining it. I despised the Communist
system for its stifling bureaucracy, but I was not going to die fighting it.
When I realized that I could not prevail, I decided to leave, “to escape” as Communist
bureaucrats called it, without wasting my life for the mediocrity of existence.
The decision to leave Poland did not come easy for me, as I felt deeply
patriotic to work for the benefit of Poland, regardless of who was in charge. I
went to Sweden three times and returned to Poland twice, trying to adjust to the
Communist system without compromising my basic principles and without joining
the Communist party or becoming an informant for the Secret Police. I would
have returned a third time but the Secret Police, while exercising its heavy
hand, denied the extension of my passport and permission to come to work in the
U.S. I then realized that I had no option but to make my life in the West.
After the initial euphoria of being in the U.S.,
17 years later I was accused by another bureaucratic system of being a Soviet
high-tech spy smuggling super computers to the Soviet Union. It was then that I
realized the degree of similarity between both countries. Bureaucrats within the Secret Police are
always looking for spies and if they cannot find them they are eager to create
them. It was true in Poland and later was true in the U.S. Fortunately, in both
cases I avoided ending up in prison. In due time, I was exonerated and even named
Entrepreneur of the Year in Central Ohio
in 1989. The difference in the U.S. was that I could start and run an inventive
business; this was impossible in Communist Poland. When I left Poland, I worried
about the two most important things needed for my existence: food and shelter. In reality,
I was never hungry or cold.
What I missed most was the Polish language
which I had mastered and in which I could express a sense of humor. It took me many years to convey my ideas in
English. I always liked my profession of
being an electrical engineer. I never had to resort to working a menial job
after my emigration as many of my compatriots did, cleaning offices or washing
dishes in a restaurant. It may be of interest to the others that I did not come
from a family of intellectuals or wealth. My mother was a bookkeeper and my father
worked as a technician for the telephone company. After WWII they hardly made a
living. Nevertheless, they valued an
education. In the beginning, I didn’t
excel in high school. In fact, I repeated the ninth grade. I gained admission to Polytechnic Institute
in Wroclaw, Poland because of my Aunt Otylia Woyczynska, who tutored me and
provided with me a shelter and meals when my parents couldn’t. If I ever had to
describe my qualities, I would say that Jan Czekajewski is lacking patience and
precision, but has a rich imagination. On this imagination, I built the rest of
my life. Sometimes my imagination has been troublesome and wandered off down
its own path; but, in the end, it has mostly served me well.
Early in life, while still in Poland, I
became an inventor and entrepreneur, which I continued in Sweden and in the U.S.
Now many years later, I have become relatively wealthy following my “old
country” principle: never borrow money. In a time when the world is on the
verge of economic collapse due to mounting debt, I am one of the few who can
boast that I do not know what a loan or debt fully means. In my book I try to
convey to the ambitious reader that it is possible to make money without
capital. The most valuable capital you have is in your head. You have to like
what you are doing and you should dream a lot. Do not make money your primary
objective. If you do, you will make the wrong choices. Financial success comes
with excellence of your job. It is nothing more than a byproduct of your work.
Money must not be the goal itself.
My next lesson for the future generation
would be how to make money without being enslaved to it. During my work at Uppsala University I had a South
Korean friend who was a physicist. He mentioned something about money to me. He
said, “If you like to make a lot of money, then go into the banking industry,
not physics or electronics. In the banking industry a lot of cash will float
through your hands. It will not take a lot of effort to skim a fraction of a percent
of this money to make you rich.” He did not follow his own advice. He liked
physics. He became a professor at Seoul University in South Korea. It was too
late for me to change my career into banking either. I liked building
electronic instrumentation. Making a comfortable living was also on my mind, as
I remembered starving as a child during the war and living very modestly as a
family after the war. The money was
never my main priority though.
How could I marry two distant elements, electronics
and financial prosperity? It would never be possible in a Communist system; but,
in the Capitalist Western World, surely there was a way to start my own company
with profits directly correlated to my ability.
In the following chapters you can find that
elements of private entrepreneurship existed even within Communism. The seed of
Capitalism was planted in me by my mentor Professor Stefan Bincer, at Polytechnic. Even before that though, in high school, I
was experimenting with a few entrepreneurial ideas of my own. In due time I started a one-person company—Uppsala
Instruments in Sweden and transplanted it to the U.S. as Columbus Instruments.
Over the last 40 years my company has grown and what is more important—it’s
never lost money. I am old-fashioned in my approach to running my
business—without debt and without investors. I have demonstrated that it is
possible to enjoy my own inventiveness and make a comfortable living along the
way. If you have a propensity for both,
you should try. Along the way, a few hundred people—past and current employees
and their families—made a good living. It was never a fast and easy path. It
was an uphill struggle which I thoroughly enjoyed. Therefore, I titled this
book Musings of a Rebellious Emigrant.
Toying with my own life
During the war, when my parents were working
to sustain our meager way of life, the schools were closed for weeks and months
and were then converted to military hospitals. Consequently, this left me with nothing better
to do than wander the neighborhood with friends looking for trouble. I lived on
Sniadeckich Street surrounded by fields that were either planted with potatoes
or rye. Two kilometers from my house was
a new frontier—Germany. The next village already in German Proper was Gnaszyn. The
border was patrolled by guards and dogs. I occasionally slipped through this
border to glimpse life in “Germany” which was in fact, a pre-war Polish
village. Polish farmers from this village were often crossing this border with
sacks of bread to sell in the General Government, a special zone created in
Poland where it was still permissible to speak the Polish language.
I remember often seeing an ice-cream man
pushing a two-wheeled cart across the border. Apparently, there was more milk
to make ice cream in Germany than in G.G. (General Government), but the market
was in the large General Government city of Czestochowa. The last railway
station in G.G. was close to my home. Since the war with the Soviet Union, the Germans
decided to enlarge this station to allow for the transport of military material
to the East. They decided to dig out and level neighborhoods to install the new
side railways and ramps for transports waiting to be assembled into trains sent
to the East. Surprisingly, this work lasted for the duration of the German-Soviet
war, up to the moment the German Army was collapsing. Apparently, somebody in
German bureaucracy forgot that such a large project was underway and could
later serve the Soviets to supply their own army fighting Germans on the Oder
line and in Berlin.
During the enlargement of the Stradom railway
station, Germany imported a number of large earth-moving machines and installed
a system of narrow-gauged railroads to move the excavated earth. Work on the
railway station took place most of the day, but tapered off and eventually
stopped in the evenings. The kids from the neighborhood, myself included,
roamed this area and enjoyed riding the narrow gauge carts, from the top of the
hill to the bottom. Just for the fun of it, we rearranged the rails at the
bottom of the hill so that the carts derailed and landed in deep pools of
water. In order to remove them, the Germans had to use heavy lifts which were
not available at this location. One day while we were enjoying this mindless
pursuit, we noticed that the German guard was watching us and started chasing
two of us. We ran to the west, to the German border, to throw him off the trail
of where we really lived. The guard had
a gun in his hand, but didn’t shoot. Now, I wonder why he didn’t shoot at us.
Perhaps he realized that we were only 8- or 9-year-old boys and didn’t want to
kill a child. We were able to shake him after a short pursuit. Close to the German border we dove into the
high wheat. Apparently the guard had lost
his bearings. After 67 years, my friend, Hubert Swiac admitted to being chased
by the German guard. We lived on the
same street as kids and he recounted the same story all those years later as I
visited him in his home still nestled in Czestochowa.
Some other times, out of boredom, I engaged
in the anti-German activity of shooting out the glass isolators supporting the telegraph
lines along the railway tracks to Germany with my slingshot. Back then, telegraph
wires hung aimlessly from the telephone poles disrupting German communication. This
activity was done far away from any guards and I never noticed any pursuits and
therefore considered this to be a relatively safer venture than launching small
gauge carts into the deep water pools. The fact that I lived through the Second
World War was almost accidental. People
around me were dying, but I had very little knowledge of it. The first time I really
saw death was the day when the Germans fled and the Soviets appeared on the
streets in my town. There were corpses of German soldiers. One, which moved me the
most, was an elderly bald man, looking very much like my father, who had been
traveling in his horse-driven supply truck.
He was dead, lying next to his dead horse. He was probably a farmer, too
old to fight, but still of use to Germany as a delivery man. He was probably machine-gunned by the Soviet
tank. His body just laid there next to
the Cathedral of Holy Family, where a battle had taken place with advancing
Soviet tanks. There were also burnt out Soviet tanks with entirely burned
bodies inside of them. I saw the naked body of a German soldier, probably taken
from the nearby hospital and thrown into an anti-aircraft trench. They didn’t
even try to bury him. These were strangers, somehow caught up in this war. At
the time, I didn’t know that millions of them died a similar death, their
graves completely unmarked, scattered and strewn all across Europe. Looking back on my childhood now, I can’t
believe how stupid I was to put myself in danger by antagonizing the foreign
armies and their abandoned artillery shells.
Soviet prisoners of war: Memories from my early childhood
It was
November 1942. I was 8 years old, walking to the underground school in
Czestochowa, Poland. Czestochowa had
already been under the oppressive German yoke for three years. School was illegal, because the Nazis prohibited
unsupervised, private teaching. Nevertheless, my parents decided to send me to
illegal courses run in a private apartment. My schooling didn’t last long. The
following year the clandestine school was raided by the Gestapo and the teachers
were sent to Auschwitz. Nazi Germany decided that the Poles should become slave
laborers and consequently wouldn’t need a high school diploma or knowledge of
history.
Here is Heinrich Himmler of the
SS on the four years of elementary school which was to be the only education of the Polish Reich’s
new subjects:
“The sole goal of this
schooling is to teach them (Poles) simple arithmetic, nothing above the number
500, writing one’s name and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the
Germans…I don’t think that reading is desirable.”
Courses for
the underground school were held about two miles (3.2 km) walking distance from
my home. Along the way, on Handlowa
Ulica (Commerce Street), I noticed a group of nearly one hundred Russian POWs
walking under an escort of two German soldiers. On the left side of the street
there was a field of cabbages planted earlier that year, with cabbage heads
already harvested, but from the frozen soil there were remnants of the cabbage
stems sticking up. The prisoners asked the German guards for permission to
explore this field, and when a compassionate German soldier agreed, they ran
into the field, devouring these stems as if they were a rare delicacy.
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Toy alligator identical to one
received from Soviet POW in exchange for a piece of bread in 1942
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After
the war we learned that in the small POW camp in my home town of Czestochowa,
many thousands of Soviet POWs starved to death. There were hundreds of camps on
Polish and German territory where millions of Soviet POWs were sentenced to
death by starvation. The chances of a Soviet POW surviving imprisonment were
equivalent to the chances that a Jew would survive a concentration camp in
Auschwitz. They did not gas them. They were just starved to death.
Many
years later, in the 1980s, a friend from Poland came for a visit to Columbus,
Ohio and brought with him a present for my daughter, a wooden alligator. It was
an alligator of the same size and look which I got from the starving Soviet
soldier. I did not pass this alligator to my daughter, I kept it for myself. It
was too dear for me to part with it. I do not know what happened to the
original gift that I got from the Soviet POW, as I have changed my residence
many times in several countries since I was eight years old.
On
April 14, 2009—67years later—I saw on American TV Ivan Demjanjuk: former Soviet
soldier, and POW, 89 years old. He was
being taken on a stretcher to the detention center where he would be deported
to Germany to be tried for his alleged WWII crimes as a Concentration Camp
guard. Maybe it was Ivan Demjanjuk who gave me the wooden alligator in exchange
for two slices of bread. Maybe it was
he, who when confronted with the possibility of death by starvation decided to
become a Nazi guard. Some of these people guarded fuel or food depots and some
were assigned to guard concentration camps. I do not know if Ivan Demjanjuk
from Cleveland, Ohio was a guard in a concentration camp, because he denies
such involvement. But if he was, I suspect that many of us would have behaved
similarly if confronted with imminent death by starvation? We may have chosen
to extend our life for a few more months or weeks.
There is not a single living witness who could
testify that Demjanjuk committed the crimes that the German government had
accused him of. In January 2012, bedridden
Demjanjuk was still waiting for his final sentence by the German Court. The situation was now nothing else, but
distasteful. On March 17, 2012 John
Demjanjuk, age 91, died in a German prison nursing home.
According to
Israelis Haaretz’ news report on March 23, 2012, the German Munich District
Court made an announcement that Demjanjuk was deemed innocent because his
appeal had not been heard or decided upon by the higher court. Under German
law, innocence is presumed until the appeal process is concluded and the
Appellate Court rules. It was confirmed by the court that Demjanjuk had no
criminal record and that the previous verdict was invalidated.
By Thomas J. Sheeran
......In 1985 secret FBI report uncovered recently by the
Associated Press indicates that the FBI believed a Nazi ID card purportedly
showing that Demjanjuk served as a death camp guard was a Soviet-made fake.
It looks like, if we live long enough, then our mortal
enemies (Soviet KGB) will became our (U.S.) friends.
Robbing the Soviet trains
Once the Germans were gone the Soviets immediately
took over the Stradom train station in my neighborhood. This time they transported
supplies to the still-fighting troops somewhere on the Oder River and on the
way back they were returning surplus front line supplies and whatever they could
harvest from the German factories. Most of the stuff in these trains heading east
was rusting in the open box cars exposed to the snow and rain. Surprisingly,
they were even bringing back old ball bearings of different sizes held together
by a common string. For the boys in the neighborhood it was a challenging
experience to explore these transports. Usually at the end of each train, there
was a guard car with Soviet soldiers equipped with machine guns. They were
bored by this routine function of guarding useless cargo and very often got drunk.
We snuck on these trains and stole whatever looked appealing, usually useless
stuff of no value to anyone. One week there was an interesting train, which had
cars roofed and sealed with lead seals.
At the top of the railway car there was round
ventilation opening. At that time, if I was able to squeeze my head through an
opening I could squeeze the rest of my body through it. On this operation, I
was accompanied by a friend who was waiting outside and collecting whatever I
would throw to him through the ventilation opening. Inside the car I discovered
a number of pine boxes which I was able to pry open to harvest what was inside.
Inside was a wealth of aircraft navigational equipment, aircraft radios and
machine guns. While I was harvesting a wealth of newly-discovered Soviet
aircraft accessories, I heard voices speaking Russian outside of the car. My
friend apparently ran away without telling me that my presence inside of the
car was compromised. I froze with fear. Soon there was more than one voice and
they started to open the large sliding door to the car. Moreover, somebody was
trying to open the second sliding door from the other side of the car. To this
day I think about this situation and what would have happened to me and my
parents if I were caught. Then one door opened wide and I could see a Polish
railway policeman looking at my meager posture of 11 years old as he whispered,
“You run, you son of a bitch because the Soviets will shoot you.” I ran under another train as I heard shouting
in the distance. This son of a bitch has run away.
It must have been my second trip to this
train, because I remember a number of very interesting precision instruments,
including a radio which I never could get to work that I had in my basement. I
took these instruments apart and marveled at their precision. I was never able
to reassemble them again. Apparently, any constructor must first pass through a
period of deconstruction. Now I feel sorry for the Soviet guards who were
probably severely punished for my mischief. I didn’t even profit financially
from my actions either. I endangered my own life and my parents’ lives.
Fortunately I was not caught; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to write this book.
Today, I am not proud of my actions.
Experiments with tank shells
Another favorite activity of 11- and 12-year-old
Johnnies just after the war was disassembling the tank shells and using the
variety of extracted powders for pyrotechnic experiments. On the side rail
lines of the Czestochowa Cargo railway station the Soviets kept trains with
defective Soviet and Germen tanks, These trains were waiting for permission to
roll eastward through the otherwise clogged train lines. Some of these trains
lingered there for weeks. Since schools were not yet operating my colleagues
and I inspected these tanks looking for interesting parts to steal. Besides a
lot of tank ammunition, there was nothing we could use. The tank shells were
laying in large quantities on the floor of each tank. To get to the powder in
the cartridge we had to separate the projectile, loaded with high explosives,
from the cartridge. It took two people to do this, one holding the projectile
and the other holding the cartridge. By tapping the area around the place where
the projectile was attached to the cartridge we could loosen the projectile and
remove it. Inside the cartridge, there were several kinds of powder—some in the
form of spaghetti. This was the most interesting and valuable to us. When
ignited it shot off like a rocket. Fortunately, our operation was precise and
we avoided tapping too roughly on the projectile itself, which would have caused
an explosion and certain death to all the curious friends, including myself.
Again, it was a stupid thing to do. The fact that I am alive today is more
chance than fate. I was not using my head at the time.
Compared to other cities, my hometown town
Czestochowa was not severely damaged during the German retreat and the number of
civilian causalities was low. Nevertheless, many children died—not during military
action, but during stupid experiments with explosives.
Luckily, I still have my eyes.
While disarming tanks shells to extract the “spaghetti”
powder, we also realized that next to the ignition was a pillow of cotton with
black powder. Now, I know that the science of the artillery shell is complex. After initial ignition it requires a controlled
burning of powder—the “spaghetti” powder.
The pillow with black powder gave an initial start and then slower
burning, nitrate powder took over, providing gradual pressure build up for the projectile
to travel through the barrel of the gun. One evening we decided to ignite the
pillow with black powder. Usually, gun powder in the open air burns slowly; but,
not black powder especially when compressed in the cotton pillow. Four of us were
sitting around this pillow, about 15 cm in diameter and 1 cm thick, trying to
ignite it. Suddenly, we succeeded. I remember a flash and I closed my eyelids.
Immediately after I experienced a terrible burning sensation in my eyes, but
fortunately, I could still see. Apparently, I closed my eyes before particles
of black powder could penetrate my eyeballs. None of us lost his sight, but
some had badly burned hands and faces. I remember running around that night
with a burning pain in my face, where particles of black powder had lodged
themselves. I learned my lesson. I never again experimented with explosives.
My first commercial transaction
My first commercial transaction took place in
February 1945, just one month after Czestochowa was liberated by the Red Army. I
was 11 and my business counterpart was an 18-year-old Soviet soldier. He was
assigned to guard the storage of a few sacks of sugar lying under the tarp in
the courtyard of our home. It was a military storage of food for some small
unit fighting Germans to the West. As the war was still going on and I was sugar-deprived
for five long years, I watched the Soviet sugar with envy and temptation. I
also started to learn rudimentary Russian and could convey my ideas to the
Russian solder, who somehow understood me. Maybe he was Ukrainian; their
language is more similar to Polish. I impressed him with my four-color flash
light, manufactured during the war by the local factory. It had three filters,
red, green and blue in addition to the clear filter which produced normal white
light. It was meant to send color-coded signals by the German soldiers.
Apparently, four-color-flash lights did not help the Germans to win the war,
because they were losing battles and abandoning the flashlights in a hurry. For whatever reason, this flashlight was of
interest to the Soviet soldier and he asked me if I would be willing to part
with it. Looking at the wealth of sugar sacks I said yes, imagining the substantial
amount of this sweet commodity I would be able to barter for. I entered into a verbal
agreement with the soldier, which specified that in the middle of the night, I
would leave my four-color flashlight under the sink in the next house and he would
deposit my sugar in the same place. The next day I went to our secret place
only to realize that he left there a small cotton bag with about 100g of sugar,
his daily ration, mixed with remnants of tobacco. Apparently, he originally used
the cotton bag to store tobacco. My four-color flashlight was gone. I was
deeply disappointed. I expected to
receive at least 1kg (about 2lbs) of sugar. It was too late to complain,
because the agreement was not precise and I underestimated the Soviet soldier’s
honesty. I was expecting him to steal sugar from the sugar sacks he was
guarding. That didn’t happen. Instead, the soldier gave me his daily ration.
Besides that, it was already too late to modify the contract as the front was
moving westward and my counterpart was already sitting on the sacks of sugar
loaded on the track. I realized my error and I was not angry with him.
Unfortunately, later in life I made a few similar errors in entering into
agreements where the outcome was not precisely described and resulted in erroneous
expectations.
Imagination
When I was 14, my beloved father sat me in
front of him and told me: “Johnny, I am worried about your future.” He
loved me very much and at that time I was his only child. My brother and sister
were born shortly thereafter. He was worried because of my unruly character and
trouble at school. Besides my poor grades, there were reports of behavioral
problems. I asked my teachers difficult questions, ridiculed them and had
already been expelled from a number of schools. Czestochowa was not a large
town, probably about 140,000 people and the number of high schools available
was limited. I ended up in the High School of Traugutta where a friend of my
mother was a secretary to the school director. Without her intervention I had
no chance of getting into this esteemed school. My education was delayed due to
the closure of schools during the German occupation. Most of the time grade
schools were converted into German military hospitals and students wandered
with nothing to do. After the war I was faced with a rigorous high school
curriculum, and found I couldn’t cope with it. The teachers were less than helpful.
In ninth grade I failed in multiple subjects, including mathematics. I think
that the teachers assumed I was just an idiot not worthy of their attention. People
like me, according to them, should become apprentices of shoemakers rather than
waste space in high school classrooms. Rejected by the teachers, I gave up on
studying obligatory subjects and withdrew into reading a variety of books. Each
day on the way home from school, I stopped at the library of the County Office
where my mother was working and picked up randomly selected books. I read them at
home and read them at school instead of paying attention to the teachers. The result was obvious. I failed in five
subjects, including mathematics and physics and had to repeat the ninth grade. Fortunately, at the same time I advanced my
knowledge in another way that benefitted me the rest of my life. I was ahead of
my peers in word classics which were not on the obligatory subject list. I also
acquired a rich vocabulary and affinity for storytelling.
My problem, according to the school, was also
a lack of respect for the teachers. At the time, teachers were called
professors and wielded absolute authority. I was late to school every day. I lived about two km (1.25 miles) from the
school and I had to walk there every morning. It was a boring trip. I developed
a method to battle the boredom. When I left my house on Sniadeckich Street I
imagined that I was living in an artificial world and my dream lasted for the
length of my walk. On the way back my imagination picked up and continued the
same story. I didn’t notice passage of time, nor rain or snow. I was walking in
the dream. I didn’t realize that I was using my imagination to cope with the boring
commute to school. Later I learned to use it to design new equipment, imagining
different versions of it without prototyping.
|
Bad grades- Jan’s report card
during 9th grade.
|
Pornographic deviant
It was nothing short of a miracle that I was
not expelled from high school for spreading pornography. I was repeating the ninth grade for the first
time (I had to repeat it twice due to the poor performance and multiple failing
grades). Now my grades slightly improved, mostly because of the fear that I
could be drafted to the army if I failed to attend university. Being a soldier
in the army was a nightmare of a possibility for the rest of my life.
Apparently I was born a pacifist. In
addition, an army that fights in the mornings or at night was against my deep
moral convictions. I would have accepted an army that enlists members on a
voluntary basis and conducts its fighting in the afternoon as well as
guaranteed my wellbeing.
I was of small stature—much smaller than the rest
of my class and I did not have any experience with the girls. It troubled me as
my colleagues were bragging about their own erotic successes. I decided to show
them that I was just as popular with the ladies and concocted a plan. This
would be challenging as my school, at that time, was strictly male: no girls
allowed.
I looked over my family photo albums where I
noticed a number of pictures of my mother and aunts from the early 1930s. I
selected their pictures which were taken on vacation, on the river bank or sea
side. I chose pictures showing ladies scantily dressed in bathing suits. I
brought these pictures to school and showed them to my colleagues as my erotic
conquests. My picture collection became immediately popular and a crowd of
colleagues gathered around my desk to admire the “nearly naked” females. My class was so engrossed in this sinful
pursuit that they didn’t notice our physics professor enter the room. He approached my desk and became hysterical upon
seeing young ladies in swim suites. He confiscated the entire collection of
pictures as damning documentation of my pornographic crime and expelled me from
the class, asking for my father to come to see him. Terrified, I went home and
explained to my father that I was expelled from high school and he needed to go
to see Professor Bernatek, who would explain to him my crime. Being expelled
from this high school was a serious situation, as it was the last high school
in town left to expel me. I had run out of schools that would accept me. This particular high school was my last
chance. When my father got to the school Professor Bernatek showed him the handful
of pictures of my mother and my aunt. Professor Bernatek was so irritated by my
behavior that he exclaimed to my father: “Your son. . . will not die a natural death. . . He will be hanged. . .” Seeing my mother in the pictures, my father calmly
disagreed with Professor Bernatek’s verdict and explained to the champion of
high school morals that he was wrong. Professor Bernatek recanted and I was
allowed to return to school and even graduate with grades respectable enough to
be admitted to the prestigious Polytechnic Institute in Wroclaw.
Professor Bernatek’s hysterical reaction to the pictures of my mother
in her swim suit had another explanation. Apparently, he had plans for me and
my colleagues. He was homosexual and didn’t like spreading heterosexual ideas
which could corrupt our gullible, young minds. Additionally, he was an imposter
in science. He pretended to be a
physicist, but his university diploma was somehow lost in the turmoil of the
war. For me, the moment of truth came when Professor Bernatek was teaching us
about lenses and photographic cameras. He mentioned that the first photographic
camera was invented by a medieval monk named Father Obscur; therefore his
invention was called the “Camera Obscura.” When I questioned the validity of his
statement, he became very angry. How could I, with my failing grade in Latin,
understand the invention of the medieval monk, Obscur? Despite his outrage, I insisted that “Camera
Obscura” means nothing more than “dark box.”
For sure, he was not happy with my opinion, but after his debacle with
my “pornographic pictures” he retreated without an elevated level of torment.
In the attic of our school Professor Bernatek
constructed his own physical laboratory equipped with a dark room. Students who
failed physics were later invited to his laboratory for dedicated tutoring. One
of them was my friend Reniek Odulinski who also loved photography. Reniek was
invited to Professor Bernatek’s dark room where he was given the task of developing
very sensitive film, which supposedly would have been damaged even by the faint
red light. At least this was the opinion of Professor Bernatek. Reniek’s function
was to hold the film with both hands and smoothly move it through the
developing mixture. While Reniek was busy with the assigned task, Professor
Bernatek attempted to open Reniek’s zipper and grab him. Somehow Reniek turned
to the wall and the professor’s attempts were thwarted. I escaped Professor Bernatek’s attention mostly
because he knew how outspoken I was. He
knew that I would be unmoved by receiving a failing grade and even less moved
by an invitation to receive personal tutoring to improve my grade. Finally the professor was expelled from the school.
I don’t know what happened to him after I left for study in Wroclaw
Polytechnic.
Radio-telegraph operator
Around
the same time as my adventures with Professor Bernatek, the local paper in
Czestochowa, announced that the paramilitary organization “Service for Poland”
was offering courses to become a radio operator. The courses were free so I
applied, not realizing that this decision could lead to me being sent to the
front lines if another war broke out. There was plenty of tension due to the Korean
War. The Polish Army was under Soviet
command and needed radio operators fluent in sending and receiving messages in Morse
code. At that time I was only 14 and I doubted that I would be accepted. The
age requirement was 16; but, apparently there was a shortage of candidates and
I was accepted as the youngest participant. The course took nine months during
which we learned how to send and receive messages in Morse code. At the end of
the course I was able to send and receive messages with a speed of 25 words (each
word with five letters) per minute. The local paper announced that I was the
youngest course participant as well as the only one to graduate with honors. It
was the first public announcement where I was mentioned positively in the local
paper. Two years later this course helped me to get into Polytechnic.
Fortunately, the Third World War did not materialize and my Morse code skills
were not tested as an advance artillery spotter. The picture on the front cover of this book
was taken during this telegraphic course.
Johnny as a publisher
My entrepreneurial spirit was lingering long
in my conscious and finally emerged in my last year of high school when I was
preparing for the final examination known as the “maturity examination”
otherwise known as “Matura.” All high school students were required to pass
examinations from two subjects: Polish language and mathematics. The subject of
mathematics was most troublesome to most of the students. Few could memorize the
lengthy mathematical formulas needed to solve the equations on the Matura. I was no exception. I have never been able to
rely on my own memory. Use of mathematical tables or manuals was forbidden
during the examination. To remedy this situation many of us prepared cheat
sheets with formulas written in small hand writing. The cheat sheets had to be
small enough to be hidden in the palm of our hands. At that time I had a friend
named Joseph Kasprzycki who was a draftsman at the local water plant in
Czestochowa. He had an exceptionally stable hand and a sharp eye. He could draw
miniature lettering of the mathematical formulas using Chinese ink on the
transparent paper used to copy blue prints. I employed him in my publishing
enterprise to make a cheat sheet for myself, as well as another hundred copies for
other students at two prominent high schools in town, Lice of Traugutta, where
I was a student and neighboring Lice of Sienkiewicz which claims to be even
more affluent. The mathematical formulas were drawn by Joseph on the
transparent, vinyl paper, called “kalka” and transferred to the photosensitive
paper for the blueprint.
To develop the print to a stable, visible
form ammonia was used. This method was also common in the U.S. when I arrived
in Columbus, and some of my first schematics were developed this way. Soon we
could make a few hundred copies on the large photocopying paper, which were
subsequently cut and folded into a small booklet that could be hidden in the
palm of your hand. I realize now that
all the copying was done on materials provided by the water supply company
where Joseph worked. Nowadays I would never tolerate such a project in my own
company. Once we had a sufficient number of booklets I distributed them, for
money, to the multitude of high school students preparing for the Matura
examination. I shared the monetary proceeds with Joseph to keep him happy and
silent.
Soon I passed my maturity examination and
went to Polytechnic to study electronics. Joseph Kasprzycki somehow followed me
to Wroclaw. I don’t remember where he worked, but he told me that since he
wasn’t enrolled in college he was drafted to the army for the border defense
guard, where he was wounded by some kind of Ukrainian bandit. He recovered, but
later developed anemia and quickly died from complications of his condition.
Maryssa,
my first love
|
Jan (left) in love with
Maryssa, pictured with friend Romuald Odulinski
|
This book mentions my first, second and third
wives. I would be remiss if I didn’t
mention also my first love. Maryssa’s story is a bit unusual. I was 15 when I
met her and had just awakened to the dangerous and exciting world of boy-girl
relations. At that time, reproduction
was not on my mind, but sex certainly was. I met Maryssa in southeastern Poland
in the Carpathian Mountains in the rural town of Zmigrod nestled between two
larger towns of Jaslo and Krosno. I was there for summer camp after 9th
grade with a group of students from my high school. The camp was organized by
our geography teacher, Professor Kusiba and we slept in the local high school
which was vacant during the summer vacation. My close friend, Romuald Odulinski was also
there.
Considering myself a unique individual, I
refused to participate in the organized camp excursions, preferring to venture
alone and explore the mountains by myself. During one such lonely excursion I came
across a girl of exceptional beauty. She
had a dark complexion and reminded me of a Gypsy or Hungarian. She was tending
two cows. Her name was Maryssa. In the U.S., I would have called her a cowgirl.
I sat next to her and struck up a conversation. She was a high school student
vacationing for the summer with her parents, farmers in Zmigrod. The next day I
was again drawn to the same spot and met her again. I noticed that my interest
in this girl was growing and with time and I felt that I should tell her about
it. Unfortunately being afraid of rejection I couldn’t verbalize my feelings. Over
the next two weeks I met her every day in the mountain slope and sensed that
she noticed my interest in her. This
still didn’t help me to overcome my shyness. Her vacation as well as my summer
camp was over at the end of August leaving us to return to our separate
schools. I left Zmigrod, and expected never to see Maryssa again.
Two years later I had graduated high school
and was accepted to the Polytechnic Institute in Wroclaw. Wroclaw was a large
town and before WWII belonged to Germany under the name of Breslau. It was
about 450 km away from Zmigrod. During my first year of study I would take the
street car to Polytechnic. One day I sat next to a girl who reminded me of
Maryssa, the girl I met on the mountain slope tending cows. To my surprise, she
recognized me immediately and we started talking about what had happened in our
lives over the last two years. She was a first year student at the Agriculture
Academy and rented a room in the distant suburb of Ciazyn. Later Ciazyn’s name was
changed to Ksieze Male. She invited me to visit her any time I liked. She
mentioned that the No. 5 tram to Ciazyn would take about 40 minutes from
Wroclaw to reach her apartment.
The next day or so I went to see Maryssa. She
was renting a small one room from an older landlady. When I visited Maryssa, the
landlady insisted that Maryssa keep her door open so that she could make sure
that nothing “immoral” was taking place with a male visitor inside. As time
went by I was visiting Maryssa more often and I was now much less timid than I
was two years ago in Zmigrod. She allowed me to undress her and we enjoyed
caressing, but she was steadfast that our interaction stopped short of
intercourse. Occasionally, I ran into a competitor, another young student from
her school who was also calling on her. I
was already mature, approaching the elderly age of 18 and I felt that I needed
a real sex life, which Maryssa denied me. I now suspect that she was either
afraid to get pregnant or afraid to lose her physical virginity.
One evening during the student dance I was seduced by another girl who
had no objections to having intercourse with me on the table in the darkened
class room located next to the dance hall. She later became my first wife,
Elisabeth. Once I felt empowered by a regular sex life with Ella, the
importance of a sex life with Maryssa became less pressing. I told Maryssa that
we had to part because of her insistence on virginity. Time went by and I was Ella’s
regular lover, mostly on Thursdays. Who were her lovers on the other days is still mystery to me. Five
years later I finished my studies and rented a room from Ms. Zelewska, a middle-aged
single woman of German origin who was trying to seduce me without success. I knew that if I succumbed to her sinister
and amoral scheming, the possibility for visits from other girls to my room
would be terminated. In the meantime my relationship with Ella became strained
as she insisted that we should exchange marital vows. In the end she prevailed,
claiming to be pregnant and became my first wife with dreadful consequences for
both of us.
The apartment of Ms. Zelewska was in the old building on Powstancow
Slaskich (Silesian Uprising Street), now just across from the Hotel Wroclaw. I
rented one room. The second room was Ms.
Zelewska’s. In between our rooms were two narrow rooms a bathroom and a kitchen.
Usually I took tram No. 17 to get home from Polytechnic. One day I was standing
on the tram next to a girl who to my surprise, once again turned out to be
Maryssa. We were both happy to see each other and had to exchange information
about our lives for the last five years. As the tram was approaching my stop, I
invited Maryssa to follow me to my room as we had so much to say to each other.
After she took off her coat, I realized that she was probably at least five
months or more pregnant. I congratulated her, and asked her who the happy
father was. She had married her boyfriend from Agricultural Academy, the same
who was visiting her when I was making unsuccessful approaches to deflower her five
years ago.
She proceeded to undress and mentioned that
now she could be more agreeable than before. I felt a bit uneasy about the whole
situation, but took her offer at face value. I relaxed after our first act of
sexual consummation. Maryssa was apparently disappointed with my short-lived
performance. She expected more from me. I told her that she had to wait, until
I gathered more strength. Unfortunately she could not wait, as her husband was
waiting for her in the nutria breeding farm they were running together outside
the city. Then she had one more pressing issue. She needed to pee. I told her
that she couldn’t walk naked to the restroom, because she would have to pass in
front of the kitchen where my landlady was cooking. She desperately insisted on
reliving herself immediately. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a large aluminum
pot in which I used to boil potatoes. She peed in the pot and then she dressed
herself, kissed me goodbye and left. I went to the restroom and emptied the
pot, but had no time to rinse it with water. Immediately after, there was a
ring at my door—it was my friend Andrzej Witkowski.
He said that he was passing by and decided to
drop in. He had in his hand a large paper bag filled with strawberries. The bag
was already wet and strawberries were ready to spill onto the floor. He grabbed
the aluminum pot which, moments ago, was used by Maryssa and emptied
strawberries into it. Then he proceeded to eat them and invited me to share
this delicious dessert. I didn’t tell him what was in the pot a few minutes
before, as he apparently enjoyed these delicious strawberries very much and had
already eaten half of them. For many
years, I couldn’t tell Andrzej the truth about his strawberries. He was an important director in Electrim
International Trading Company; but, now that he’s retired and happily married
to his second wife, I’ll let this book tell the secret of the strawberries. I haven’t seen Maryssa since that day.
Summarizing, I consummated my first love, with five year’s delay. Was Maryssa
worth my attention? Should I have
married her, as did my competitor, to deflower her? You never know what life has in store for
you. I think for Maryssa, it’s best not
to speculate, but to enjoy her story as a fond memory from my youth.
Year 1953:
Revelation on Swidnicka Street
History has documented multiple revelations
of transcendental nature. Moses experienced one such revelation on Mount Sinai—we
all know the consequences of that. Since that fateful day people have stopped
killing each other and ceased to commit adultery…or have they? In ancient Greece, while soaking in his bath Archimedes
observed that his body weight decreased the amount of water spilled from his
tub, thus the science of hydrostatics was observed. Newton discovered Newtonian mechanics after
the apple fell from the tree and struck his head.
For me, the revelation which changed my life
happened when I was walking just before lunch in Wroclaw on Swidnicka Street.
To be more specific, my revelation was related to the world of finance. I’ll admit: this revelation was vastly
important to me; but, to a certain extent, my revelation had at least minute
implications for mankind. My revelation cannot be compared to Nicolaus
Copernicus’ treatise on the value of money “Monetae Cudendae Ratio” or his monumental work regarding a
heliocentric universe. I only mention this for those who may accuse me of
intellectual megalomania.
It was winter of 1952-53. The newspapers were
filled with stories about the so-called “Jewish Doctors’ Plot” in Moscow. The
Jewish doctors in Moscow were accused of planning to assassinate The Leader of All Nations, Joseph
Stalin. Meanwhile, The Supreme Leader
was busy in a heated linguistic discourse with Professor Nicolai Marr, who
incidentally died 13 years prior to said-discourse. My associates and I were all impressed that
Stalin would spend his valuable time engaged in an argument with the professor
about the origins of human language.
While it was true that any disagreeable discourse with The Leader of All Nations was very
unhealthy and usually ended in the violent death of the disputant, I don’t
think Professor Marr was intimidated by Stalin’s argument. That day, my
thoughts were prosaic and focused on a forthcoming lunch at a charitable Catholic
organization, “Caritas.”
I was contemplating if my meager resources
would be sufficient for the main course.
In Caritas’ lunchroom one could have soup and bread for free, but the main
course required a coupon, which cost money. Soup was usually a cabbage soup
with, occasionally, small chunks of meat. Otherwise it was barley or bean soup.
I walked aimlessly on Swidnicka Street toward
General Swierczewski Street (now renamed Marshal Pilsudski Street). I passed on the left a large state department
store, P.D.T., which housed an exclusive eatery “Delicatessen” on the ground
floor. I usually entered this store for a minute or two just long enough to
breathe in the robust, salty fragrance of the smoked Kabanosy sausage links. It
was purely an illusionary exercise since I couldn’t imagine ever being able to
afford anything more than the vapors with my meager stipend. Nevertheless, it
sparked my imagination. Maybe one day I would be rich—rich enough that I could
purchase so many sausages and eat until I made myself sick.
As I was walking on Swidnicka Street, the
water from the recent rain sloshed in my hollow shoes. The weather was precarious and could be
described as neither wintry nor vernal, with melting snow in between. I can’t
recall what time of the day it was because as I look back in my memory the sky
was grey and overcast, blocking out the sun for much of the daylight
hours. I definitely didn’t own such a
luxury as a watch to be able to have some sense of what hour of the day my
revelation would take hold of me and turn many of my impossibilities into
possibilities. I felt a jab of pain in my decaying tooth. I decided not to go
to the dentist since I was counting on a short life. Death by tooth decay is
usually a slow process and visits to the dentist involve a considerable amount
of pain. I have to mention, that at that time in Poland ultrasonic, water-cooled
dental drilling machines were not known and dentists usually did not
anesthetize patients’ mouths during the repairing procedures. My expectation
for a short life resulted from the pain in my right lung. An X-ray showed a spot size of the quarter, the
result of childhood tuberculosis. I was convinced that TB would resolve my
dental problems. Neither good teeth nor stainless steel dentures would keep me
out of the coffin.
While wandering aimlessly and approaching
Kosciuszko square, I turned to the right and started gazing through the large
crystal windows at the elegantly dressed people inside. They were sitting at coffee
tables drinking their coffee and tea, sampling cream pastries on porcelain
dishes with silver spoons. It was the window
of a luxurious café, known as Stylowa (In Style). The men and ladies behind the
window were above average citizens—in the parking lot in front of the café I
could see three Soviet-made “Pobieda” limousines (each equipped with a 4 cylinder,
2040cc motors, much like cars made by Ford in the early 1930s). The party
behind the window was engaged in a vivid conversation characterized by the
appropriately explicit gestures. On the wrists of these elegant, rich people I
could see foreign, stainless steel watches: “Doxa” and “Atlantic.” I had never seen such an abundance of riches
before in my home town of Czestochowa. Suddenly, I became enlightened! In spite
of all the propaganda on equality, money still existed in the Communist Polish
Peoples’ Republic. The people behind the café window were obvious, vivid proof
of it. In my analytical mind I had made an easy connection: if the money
existed, then I only needed time and effort to find it and get my deserved
share. To my surprise, I didn’t feel
envious of these people. I was grateful to them. They were my beacons of light
to my future economic success.
This revelation turned my attention away from
contemplating my death in the prime of my life. I did not realize that it was a
moment of such great change. Maybe death could be postponed? The turn in my economical life was not far
away. It was waiting for me on the same street, 150 meters away, in the monumental
Wroclaw Opera House. It may interest readers that the opera house was designed
by German architect, Carl
Gotthard Langhans, who also designed the Brandenburg Gate,
Berlin’s most famous landmark.
I got my first job as an extra, the guy
without any lines whose only function is to take up space on the stage, in the Wroclaw
Opera. My function was neither intellectually nor physically demanding. I was
assigned to form the crowd or sit passively at a café table. With my first
paycheck I purchased a watch and new soles in my shoes. For a new pair of shoes
altogether I had to wait another year. The watch though--it was essential, not
only for arriving to classes on time, but also to rendezvous with future girlfriends.
I had to be there on time. At that time, I didn’t have a girlfriend, but with such
a sharp and accurate wristwatch and newly soled shoes, I was prepared for any
challenge served up to me by the opposite sex, be it on a date or on the dance
floor. My performing artist talents shined beautifully during two performances.
One role infected with western ideas on class required me to play a ruthless
capitalist. It happened during the
performance of the Russian ballet Red
Poppy Flower composed by Reingold
Moricewicz Glier in 1927.
My role was to sit
in the café sipping champagne while outside the widow the police were swinging nightsticks
on striking workers. I was relieved that they choose me for the role of a
capitalist-imperialist and not the policemen or striking workers. Those roles
demanded physical effort, which caused sweating. The champagne I was sipping with all the
dignity of an upper-class connoisseur was not real. It was slightly colored
water. But the goblets were made of sparkling crystal. I was dressed in a
tuxedo, white shirt and bow tie. The shoes were mine, but invisible to the
public. I kept them under the table. During
the performances I completely immersed myself in the décor as well as the psyche
of the American Imperialist. Damages sustained to my socialist psyche were
severe and I never fully recovered.
Somehow, I felt no compassion for the oppressed working class, and consequently
played my role well. Later in life I
realized that the décor of an imperialist dressed in tuxedo was laughable, or
maybe the times had changed since Moricewicz Glier composed his ballet. Now,
being a capitalist, for more than 40 years I usually dress in sweaters and
never wear a tie.
Another spectacle
in which I played a prominent part during my short-lived career as a performing
artist was again in a Russian ballet named The Fountain of Bakhchisaray based on the poem by Alexander Pushkin about
the kidnapping of a young girl—the daughter of Polish aristocrat, Maria Potocki—at
the hands of the Crimean Tatars. After her capture she was sold to the harem located
in Bakhchisaray, Crimea—now part of the Ukraine.
My assigned role was to perform as a “regular” Tatar, dressed in rags,
but skilled in the art of fencing. I received minimal training so that I could
handle a saber and pretend that I knew what I was doing without really cutting
my stage enemy’s ear or throat. I didn’t
like the role, but beggars can’t be choosers. I could have landed worse. The
next available role was to be a eunuch, guarding the wives of Khan in the
Harem. Somehow I just couldn’t see myself in the role of eunuch and feared that
it would permanently damage my interpersonal relations with the opposite
sex. Setting aside any possible psychological
damage, I also feared that the name eunuch could subsequently leak out of the
Opera House into a wider student community. Such an event could damage my
reputation and prematurely sabotage any future opportunities for the duration
of my studies in Wroclaw.
At that time I didn’t pay much attention to
the underlying story of The Fountain of Bakhchisaray. Now looking into the libretto of this
ballet, I realize that in spite of being written and composed by a Russian, it
had much to do with Poland and its function as a bulwark against Muslim Tatar hordes
pushing on Europe from southwest Russia, then in the hands of the Ottoman
Empire. Unfortunately, the Great Russian
Poet, Alexander Pushkin was not sympathetic to Poles when they tried to liberate
themselves from Russian yoke in 1830. He recommended ruthless ethnic cleansing
of the Polish population. Apparently he felt that the Poles’ struggle for
independence from the Russian Empire was insulting to the benevolent idea of
unity of Slavs under Russian guidance and dominance.
My time on the stage
at the Wroclaw Opera soon came to an end due to scheduling conflicts. My studies at Polytechnic began to demand
much more attention and after late night opera performances I couldn’t wake up
the next morning to attend my early classes. Also I acquired a girlfriend, or
maybe it was the other way around—that she acquired me? In order to keep her
satisfied I needed my evenings to be open for suggestions. Saturdays and
Sundays were also problematic, because those were the nights when student
dances took place—and I had to be there, with my newly soled shoes, to
represent mankind. Over the next few
months the deadly symptoms of tuberculosis in my lungs started to disappear. I
attributed the progress to my new diet which included smoked Kabanosy sausage
links.
The story of my revelation
on Swidnicka Street is a story of the challenges I faced at the beginning of my
adult life. There were many challenges. Some of them dealt with physical
survival. As a child I was humiliated by my parents. During WWII they accepted a gift from one of
my uncles, a veterinarian. It was a pig’s
liver wrapped in newspaper. Another uncle had a small farm, and one of his
chickens had fallen victim to the chicken flu epidemic. As I remember, the entire chicken including
the feathers was embedded in clay to prevent rapid spoiling in the heat of the
summer. There was no refrigeration then.
Looking back from my
perspective of 70 years, I realize that I was a rebellious but proud child. I was angry with my parents for their
inaptitude to make a proper living. I now I realize that I was too harsh in my
judgment. They tried their best to provide for our family in devastating war
conditions with a limited education. I
then realized that it was time for me to improve my life. I did it. It took some time, as I did not
take shortcuts, but ever since that day on Swidnicka Street I’ve never gone hungry.
But after 50 years of a full stomach, I am
faced with a different dilemma. Is it
always better not to be hungry? An abundance of food readily available, plus
delicious cream cakes and rhubarb pies, inevitably introduced me to diabetes.
Fortunately, my diabetes is controlled without medication by relying on dark,
coarse, grain bread, abstaining from cakes and pasta and consuming very few potatoes.
Now it is too late to change my fate. I have to face my destiny. Would I have changed anything? Never!
My first job in Professor Bincer’s department
Most people would ask me why I would write
about such a mundane subject as moisture meters; but, this instrument and the
problems associated with it heavily influenced my life—twice. The first time was
in Wroclaw while I was repairing moisture meters for grain, a function that
would later inspire me to design my own moisture meter—a product that converted
me from a starving student, to a sometimes hungry student, to an affluent
student by 1958 standards. The second time my expertise in measuring moisture
in paper landed me a job in Columbus, Ohio where I live and prosper to this
day.
I was already in my third year in the electronic
department at Wroclaw Polytechnic, when it became obvious to me that I was lacking
practical knowledge of electronics. A friend of mine, Karol Pelc, felt
similarly. During the summer of 1954 we were sent to practice electronics at
the Gdansk Post Office where we had out of boredom designed a device to monitor
broadcasts from the powerful amplifiers transmitting a program to thousands of
home loudspeakers. At that time, following the example of the Soviet Union,
Polish citizens could listen to a program from Warsaw in their homes via
inexpensive speakers. There was only one program available; but, some more
sophisticated units were equipped with not only an on/off switch but also with
a volume knob. The Communist government regarded this medium as a very vital
means of Socialist indoctrination. Occasionally all systems were kicked off the
network, when one of the valves in the central amplifiers burned out and had to
be replaced.
During our “student practice” we designed a
timer that monitored the volume of the broadcast, and if there was a pause
longer than 30 seconds an alarm sounded alerting the supervisors that one of
the valves had burned out and needed to be replaced.
After
we returned to Polytechnic the following fall, it was only natural for us to visit
the department of broadcasting (by wire), headed by Professor Stefan Bincer,
and ask him if he had anything for us to do. Professor Bincer received us
warmly and told us that, unfortunately he himself would like to make some money
in consulting, but the science of broadcasting by wire was dying fast and
packing up its wires. Apparently, a factory in the mountains of Sudety, in the
city of Dzierzoniow started producing radio receivers and wired speakers had
become a thing of the past.
Jan pretends to be American
businessman at Wroclaw Polytechnic
|
Jan pretends to be American
businessman at Wroclaw Polytechnic
|
Measuring moisture
in paper
The last words of Professor Bincer were
prophetic, but in our situation of business ignorance, totally useless. We had
no business connections or knowledge of how to procure a consulting contract
from the state. While randomly searching
for an idea, I purchased a thick book with schematics of a variety of
electronic instruments in a so-called International Bookstore, selling mostly
Russian language literature. This book was compiled by two authors, Marcus and
Zeiloff, and comprised descriptions of a variety of instruments published in a prominent
American electronic paper, “Electronics.” One of these instruments was a moisture
meter for paper web, used in the paper industry. I read it a few times and came
to the conclusion that I could build it; or rather, I could duplicate what was
written in the book. In retrospect, I
know now how naïve I was and how difficult it is to duplicate an instrument
from the raw description and schematics.
By chance, my father worked in a paper mill
in the city of Czestochowa during the war and I knew where this mill was
located. As Karol and I were traveling often to Czestochowa to visit our
parents, we decided to visit the paper mill at Krakowska Street and offer them
“our” invention. When we entered the mill property we stopped in at the guard
house and demanded to see the technical manager of the plant. After a while a
young man appeared and I proposed the idea of supplying his plant with our recently
invented moisture meter for paper web. The manager told us that unfortunately
he did not need such an instrument because he had a living, breathing moisture
meter working at his plant. His shift manager had magic hands. When he placed
his hand on the paper he could tell within an accuracy of one percent how much
moisture it contained.
Measuring moisture
in grain
Seeing our disappointment, he mentioned that
in the nearby Warszawska Street there was another institution that may need our
expertise. It was called State Grain
Enterprises, which was authorized to purchase from farmers and store a variety
of grains. They purchased five expensive grain moisture meters made by the Dr.
Karl Weiss GmbH company out of Berlin. None of the meters worked anymore and
they were in desperate need of help.
Immediately after visiting the paper mill we
went to Warszawska Street to visit the grain purchasing organization. We
introduced ourselves as researchers from Polytechnic in Wroclaw with expertise
in grain moisture meters. We honestly informed management that we got a tip
from the paper mill manager that they had grain moisture meters that were malfunctioning.
The people at the grain purchasing organization were more than happy. They immediately
brought all five German-made meters and wrote a purchasing order for repairs at
the Polytechnic in Wroclaw. After that we packed up all of their instruments
and went directly to the railway station to bring them to Polytechnic. It did
not take us long before we realized that all five instruments had blown fuses.
|
Jan with his first design,
grain moisture meter
|
The professor magnanimously refused but rather
offered us employment as technical assistants in his department with a monthly
salary of 2000 zloty per month. Soon I started working on the marketing
campaign, writing 50 letters to the local grain purchasing organizations whose
addresses I found in the phone book. The marketing campaign became more
successful after we visited the Central Grain Laboratory in Warsaw and met its
head Dr. Jan Lysiak. He was sufficiently impressed with our knowledge of the
moisture measurements and sent a letter to all the grain purchasing organizations
in the country requesting that moisture meters be periodically validated by
“scientists” from Polytechnic. Surprisingly, he did not request any money for
this service.
Soon a flood of moisture meters, mostly made
by German manufacturer Karl Weiss GmbH, started arriving at our laboratory. As
expected, the instruments had burnt out fuses. After the fuses were replaced we
kept the instruments for two or three weeks before returning them to their
owners. What surprised me was the fact that, in many instances, the instruments
were sent to us in the summer, before grain purchasing campaigns started and
were not requested to be returned until December, when all the grain was
already purchased and moisture meters were no longer needed. It took me some
time to realize, that the grain purchasing managers preferred not to have any
moisture meters when determining how much farmers had to be paid. They either
increased moisture content of grain and paid farmers less, pocketing the
difference, or more likely, “diagnosing” moisture content of grain at a lower
percentage, paying the farmers more at the expense of the Socialist State.
Obviously, the farmers shared the profit with
the purchasing managers. Once it became obvious to me what kind of shenanigans
the purchasing managers pulled, I requested that the payment for meter repair
and calibration be done in full privacy, bypassing the Polytechnic accounting
system. I must admit that these operations were not the most honest, but it gave
me an idea as to how the entire system was operating with endemic corruption at
its base. In due time, I was living at a comfortable level, eating copious amount
of Polish sausage and scrambled eggs. Life was better every day. I even started
to design my own moisture meters for grain, which were improved copies of the Karl
Weiss GmbH design, inherently having the same problems with poor accuracy. They sold well through our Polytechnic
“consulting services.”
How I became an instrumentation engineer
Today I had a dream. I woke up with sweat on
my back. I was dreaming that I got a job and from now on I would have to get up
in the morning and be at work at 8 a.m. In addition, I misbehaved in the office
of the company president in front of two of his managers. I burst in to the
president’s office without being invited or announced and told him that “It
will work!” I think the “it” issue was heart rate telemetry for mice which was
supposed to work from the distance of a few miles. I noticed skepticism on the
faces of the others in the president’s office. After I left I too started
having doubts if my claim was premature. Maybe I made a mistake. . . and I
would be taken for a fool? When I woke
up I realized that it was just a bad dream. I am not employed by anybody. It is
me who owns a company and the reason that I had to get up so early was to interview
a new prospective employee. I dressed up and drove to the office for the
interview. This dream summarizes the story of my professional life.
When I got to Polytechnic in Wroclaw I had a
faint idea what electronics were about. The first two years at Polytechnic we
studied basic science, mathematics, physics, drafting and some aspects of
mechanical machining. After two years we supposed to choose a specialization,
such as electronic technology, radio receivers, telephony, automation, measuring
instrumentation, tele-transmission and so on. Our studies were in two parts.
After four years, we obtained the title of “engineer” and could go to work in
the industry. A select few were given
the opportunity to study for an additional two years and receive a degree of
master engineer, M.S.E.E. I and my friend Karol Pelc decided to specialize in “electronic
technology” which was taught by Professor Barwicz who commuted from Warsaw,
where he was the technical and scientific director of a large electronic tube
factory with a name of famous Jewish-German Communist--Rosa Luxemburg. After our
third year of study we were sent to this factory to see what our future place
of employment looked like. After one month of practice in the Warsaw factory I
realized that my options for work after graduation were limited to this
factory. I also knew that with my rebellious character, sooner or later, I
would get in to trouble either with factory management or with the local party
organization. The electronic technology that Karol and I had studied had more
to do with metal-glass technology with a side of creating and maintaining
vacuums in glass tubes. Very little electronic circuitry was needed. I also
realized that my options to work in another field were very limited.
Transistors were not yet known or manufactured in Poland.
I decided to change my specialization and
study Electronic Measuring Instrumentation under the guidance of Professor
Andrzej Jellonek. This new field offered unlimited job opportunities in a
variety of fields ranging from the medical field, to the grain industry, to mining,
to the food industry, textile and steel, just to name a few. I convinced my
friend Karol Pelc to follow my steps and with the consensus of Professor
Barwicz we moved to the Department of Measuring Instrumentation of Professor
Jellonek. This was the best decision I made during my studies at Polytechnic. I
still profit from this decision, now running a company that manufactures
instrumentation for bio-medical research. Since I’m my own boss, I don’t have
to worry about offending my supervisor or being dislike by my party secretary
(as long as the U.S. stays on a capitalist pass).
Karol chose a slightly different path after
receiving his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in Sweden and returned to Poland to
realize that it was very difficult, if not impossible, to excel in the
Communist system in the field of electronics. He changed his field of interest to
economics, more specifically to the field of business management and excelled
in this new field. He is now teaching in American, Japanese and European
universities methods of Management of Research and Development.
Workers revolution in Poznan and family connections
In June 1956 I was already 22. I was still working in Professor Bincer’s
department where I repaired moisture meters for grain. My life was better than a
few years ago both materially and emotionally, due to the income from moisture
meters and sexual relations with my first real girlfriend Ella. After the death
of the Supreme Leader of Mankind, Comrade
Stalin, in March 1953, life in Poland was better and more relaxed. Even before the war, Poznan hosted an
international industrial exhibition.
Karol and I decided to visit this exhibit to learn how famous western
companies made their instruments and get a snapshot of “real life” westerners
drinking Coca-Cola and whisky when peddling their wares to the visitors. While in Poznan we stayed in a private
apartment decorated in a strange style with multiple pictures of ancestors,
some faded, indicating that the ancestors died some time ago. I think the style
was called “secession” and was different than what I would consider modern. At this
time we young people were fascinated by French modernism—Picasso-style, with
geometric designs and multiple colors. In spite of my inner conflict in
artistic preferences, I liked the “old” apartment design. Apparently, I was
learning to be tolerant.
The next day (June 28) we went to the international
fair. After visiting a few exhibit pavilions, about noon, there was a rumor
spreading that on the adjoining street there was a demonstration of workers.
Nearly all of the fair attendees as well as journalists and exhibitors ran to
see this unusual event. In a country supposedly run by workers there shouldn’t be
workers disgruntled enough to warrant a demonstration. Nevertheless, workers
were walking, many hundreds of them from the local train and locomotive factory,
known before the war, after its founder, as the “Cegielski Factory.” Shortly after noon loudspeakers announced
that the exhibitions were being closed and all visitors must leave
immediately. Karol and I decided to walk
to the center of town and see what was really going on. From a distance, we
could hear small gun fire. At the time we didn’t know that the workers had surrounded
the Communist Party and Secret Police Quarters demanding that arrested strike-leaders
be freed. When walking toward the town
center we suddenly encountered a crowd of people running from machine gun fire
aimed at the houses’ windows. Tanks appeared at the end of the street with
machine guns blazing. Fearing for our lives, we hid in the portal of one of the
houses.
We realized that it would be best for us to leave
Poznan and return to Wroclaw. That was easier said than done. We decided to let
the workers take care of the revolution and spare our own lives. Unfortunately, at the railway station we
learned that the station was closed and no trains would be allowed to leave or arrive
in Poznan. We were in a quandary because we had no money to stay any longer in
Poznan. One of our options was to walk to the outskirts of the city where the
highway to Wroclaw was passing and try to hitchhike. We were not alone. A number
of other people had a similar idea. In the distance we saw a policeman walking
with a rifle. He was approached by two young men who demanded his rifle, which
he gladly surrendered. On the highway
none of the trucks were eager to pick up hitchhikers. Drivers were afraid of armed revolting
workers. I came up with an idea to entice drivers to stop. I grabbed a brick
and made a gesture to indicate that if the truck didn’t stop I would throw the
brick through the windshield. It was
more a bluff than a serious threat, but one of the truckers stopped and picked
us up along with 19 others on the truck’s bed. It was already early morning
when we approached the city of Trzebnica, where our truck reached its final
destination. Having no idea what to do next we went to the police station
asking for help. The local policemen were equally as disoriented as we were.
They were surprised that Poznan was in the middle of a workers’ revolution.
Nevertheless, they helped us to stop another
truck heading to Wroclaw. On the outskirts of Wroclaw we were stopped by a detachment
of soldiers with submachine guns. They ordered us to disembark with our hands
up. Karol had a very thin coat and he couldn’t pull his hands out of the
pockets. Maybe he had his palms curled into fists. For a moment I was scared that some of the
soldiers thought that he had a gun or grenade in his pocket ready to pull the
pin, killing us all. Fortunately, Karol was able to pull his hands out and there
was no gun or grenade. We were all searched for guns and released to go enter
the city. While in Wroclaw, I was afraid that the “uprising” would spread to
the rest of Poland and we would face a full scale domestic war with the army
shooting people.
The next day I was supposed to travel with my
university class to a distant military camp on the Oder River on the border
with the German Democratic Republic. Our departure time to training camp was
scheduled for July 1, 1956. I was caught in a dilemma about what to do. For
sure, I didn’t intend to be a part of a military that would be pushed against a
revolting Polish population. The political situation in Poland was murky. I was
afraid that if I didn’t report to the drafting board they would send the military
police to look after me. Therefore, I decided to stay temporarily with my
girlfriend Ella. There was some problem with this solution, as Ella didn’t have
her own apartment but was living with her uncle. Having no other choice I went
to see Ella and knocked on her door at 4 a.m. Fortunately, it was Ella who opened the door. I
spent the night with her without her uncle being aware of the “morally
condemnable” situation. In the morning, her uncle went to work and I had a
chance to see if the workers’ revolt was localized to Poznan or if it had spread
to Wroclaw. When I was sure that Wroclaw
was quiet I decided to join my colleagues and travel to the military training
camp. Unfortunately, the train with my student detachment had already left
Wroclaw and the military drafting office provided me with an individual ticket
to travel to the final destination on the Oder River. This trip was uneventful.
The next day I reported to the Engineering Brigade of the Polish Army where we
were supposedly getting trained in building pontoon bridges.
As usual in military planning, the best builders
of pontoon bridges would be electronic engineers, while radio communication
during the war was left to be provided by civil engineering specialists. This
didn’t make sense to me, but I had already learned not to argue with military
logic. I arrived at my pontoon detachment just in time for rifle assignment.
I’m not sure if they were equipping us with old Russian-made Mosin rifles or
newer automatic models which were now popular under the inventor’s name
Kalashnikov. My beloved father, who survived many years in the Russian army
before and during the First World War, told me that having a rifle is a
soldier’s curse. Any rifle, be it manual or automatic, requires constant
maintenance and cleaning. If you don’t keep it clean then you subjugate
yourself to severe punishment. According to my father, it was best not to have
a rifle. A rifle in your hand poses a
threat to others. Without a rifle, you
may have a better chance to end up as a POW. Remembering my father’s advice I
positioned myself at the end of the line of students who were aspiring to
obtain a rifle. As I expected there weren’t enough rifles for all of us, and I
was the lucky one to end up, without a rifle.
The next task I had to resolve was morning rising,
which happened at 6 a.m. My physical constitution is designed for sleeping late
and my mental capacity comes to life in the afternoon. Somehow I couldn’t find a
safe way to convey this to my superior officers. Just after breakfast we all lined up for
inspection by the colonel, who addressed us cheerfully: “Greetings to you
students!” In return we replied:
“Students ready to serve the Polish Peoples’ Republic!” There was a man walking with the colonel,
shorter in stature and of a lower rank, a lieutenant. I couldn’t believe my
eyes. It was my cousin, Kazik Muskalski, who was only four years older than me.
Kazik was not only my cousin, but also my good friend from my home town of
Czestochowa. He eluded high school—I doubt he even finished grade school. First
he tried his talents as a barber, then enlisted in the air force and excelled
as rear gunner on Russian-made ground attack planes, IL-2s. Then somebody in
the political department of the Polish Army decided that he would be a good
political officer. At that time I didn’t know that he later worked as an intelligence
officer, a kind of Communist Secret Police assigned to spy on and control
personnel of the armed forces.
When the inspection ended, I approached my
cousin and reminded him of the exciting times we had—when he was smuggling
stolen fuses from the Air Force and we experimented with explosives left by
Germans in the country side. Kazik was happy to see me. We remembered the solid
limestone outhouse, located about 20 yards from my home which I tried to blow
up with explosives. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Kazik didn’t supply me with the
cord necessary to delay ignition and I had to improvise by wrapping the brick
of explosive TNT material in newspaper. I ignited the newspaper and hoped that
I would have sufficient time to escape before the explosion blew up the
outhouse. After waiting a few minutes, accented by extreme silence, I
approached my device which appeared intact, because the newspaper fire
extinguished before it reached the fuse. In this moment I realized that my
success would have ruined our outhouse as well as the house itself where I
lived with my mother and father. I took this as a sign, a blessing from Heaven,
which allowed me to live, prosper and get married and divorced multiple times.
I told Kazik that I was troubled with early
rising. Kazik understood my dilemma and he had an answer. He told me that his
miserably low rank of lieutenant did not correspond to the power he wielded in
his division. He was more important than the colonel and some generals were
afraid of him, as he could unfavorably report on their political convictions.
Kazik told me that my talent in radio communication would be wasted building
pontoon bridges and instead he suggested that I report every morning to the
radio communication department and acquire two portable radio stations to be
tested. He also asked me to choose a companion with whom I could exchange radio
communications.
Each day after breakfast, my partner and I
picked up two radio stations and went to a remote location where we spent time sitting
in trenches on opposite sides of the road. Periodically we exchanged, important
messages, like, “Johnny, can you hear me OK?” To which I would reply, “Yes, I
can hear you splendidly.” Then we would
take a nice nap, as weather that year in July 1956 in that part of Poland was
excellent. I don’t know what my colleagues ended up doing on the remainder of
the trip because the whole 30 days of our training I was busy “testing” radio
stations.
Recently, 55 years later, I talked about my cousin, Kazik Muskalski
with one of my colleagues from class. He
was in the same detachment and he remembers my cousin Kazik. Apparently Kazik
also taught a history course on the Polish Armed Forces in the U.S.S.R. It
seems there were two Polish armies under Soviet command. Polish Army No1 and
Polish Army No 2. My colleague, Ryszard Pregiel accidentally confused the two
and failed his final examination. Fortunately my cousin, Kazik was very
benevolent and instead of giving him an F, he gave him a B. Ryszard would go on
to have a stellar career in Communist politics and even at the end of Communism
in Poland became Minister of Science and Technology. Who knows if my cousin’s
positive “B” didn’t help him to achieve such an important position. Later,
after the system transformation, Ryszard was still active in Democratic
politics and even advised the Polish President about technology issues within
the European Union.
In the meantime Polish politics went through
a number of dramatic changes including a return to Capitalism and Democracy. Kazik’s
service was no longer needed in the reformed military. Consequently, he retired
and underwent a spiritual conversion. At the end of his life he was a bus
driver transporting pensioners from the distant city of Szczecin to Holy Shrine
of Czestochowa Monastery. At the unveiling of the miraculous Black Madonna icon
at 6 a.m. every morning there was Kazik in the chapel. Apparently military
training left some vestige in Kazik, mainly in his early rising habits. I met
him some years later when I was traveling by ferry boat from Sweden to Poland.
I was already an American citizen and had left my Communist experiences behind
me. Kazik is an example of a basically good
person who was trapped in the Soviet system because he was uneducated and half-orphaned.
Communists gave him a chance in life and, at the time, he did not realize that
it was loaded with sinister responsibilities. Many such people fell into the
same trap. Without them, the Soviet system could not have functioned as long as
it did.
Dental
polishing machines
It was 1957 and I was finishing the twenty
third year of my life. The last four years of my emotional life was in the
hands, or rather between the legs of my girlfriend Elizabeth (Ella) Pienkowska.
In fact, she was the first female to broaden the horizons of my heterosexual
life and later, unfortunately, became my first wife in a marriage that was dead
and over before it even started. At that time Ella was working as a dental
technician at the Railway Health Service Center in Wroclaw and supplemented her
meager income by moonlighting which consisted of making dental prosthetics at
home. She could have more work, but at home she had no proper equipment to
finish her work by polishing the dentures. Unfortunately, dental polishing
machines were not available for private purchase, probably to make moonlighting
by dentists and dental technicians difficult. Ella complained to me that her
life would be better and more prosperous if she could have such a machine at
home. I was thinking about how to help her.
It is worth mentioning that the workers of the
state railroad were covered for all medical expenses by state insurance. In the
dental laboratory where Ella worked she soon learned, that to make a decent
living, the customer had to be convinced to choose private dental services,
instead of relying on the state’s. When such clients showed up, nice girls from
the dental clinic had a heart to heart discussion with the victim, explaining
that the materials used in their work were made in the Soviet Union, which was not
well known for products of high quality. In addition, to make such dentures
during regular business hours, technicians had to rush and very often the
dimensions differed from the dental requirements. Some of the patients who had
chosen the dentures made under state regulations ended up carrying their
dentures in their pockets instead of wearing them in their mouths. By contrast,
privately-made dentures were made from material smuggled from West Germany
which was of high quality and the dentures were made at home without a rush,
but with a high attention to precision. After such an explanation it was no
surprise that the majority of customers chose the private avenue and part of
such work was allocated to Ella.
One day I was wandering aimlessly around town
and looking in the window of the International Book Store where volumes of
writings by Comrade Lenin were on display, all bound in nice leather. I was contemplating if this leather would have
been better used to make nice gloves. The window next to the bookstore belonged
to a hardware shop. In this window I noticed a small electric motor with a foot
pedal for speed control. Intrigued, I entered the shop and asked about the application
of this device. Apparently, it was made locally by Factory of Water and Gas
Meters, and the motor was designed as a converter (attachment) to the old
Singer sewing machines to convert them from foot power to electric power.
Its cost was only 600 zloty. I immediately purchased one and realized that
it would only require minimal modifications to convert it into a polishing
machine. It was lacking the flexible cord between the motor and the polishing
stone, which somehow was still available in retail business at a cost of 700
zloty. Now all that was missing was a mechanical coupling between the motor and
flexible shaft which I designed in one hour’s time. Surprisingly, after 55
years I still have a sketch of the coupling I made that day. To manufacture a
coupling, I went to the mechanical workshop at the Polytechnic and talked to
the lathe operator. He agreed to make such a coupling of brass for 150 zloty
plus 50 zloty for making it nickel plated. Within a week I presented Ella with
a functioning dental polishing machine. In turn, she took it to her workplace
and demonstrated it to her colleagues. They were all very much impressed. They
all marveled about the quality of work and even noticed the four rivets which
in the original motor were used to affix the metal plate stating in Polish:
Made by Factory of Water and Gas Meters, Wroclaw, Poland. These labels I removed
immediately after I purchased the motor so as not to reveal the whole trade
secret of my operation. Nobody, even in Wroclaw, where the motors were made,
connected these motors with dental polishing machines. One question Ella had to
answer was the price of such a device. Ella replied 6,000 zloty. Her dental technician friends did not object
to the price as they concluded that these machines were probably smuggled from West
Germany and therefore to conceal their country of origin, tracks, the label with
proper name was removed.
The gross profit for each machine was 4,500
zloty which was more than double what I made as a junior assistant at
Polytechnic. After the first demonstration, Ella sold six such machines to her
colleagues in the lab. Soon I developed a distribution network, employing my
student colleagues who traveled to remote places in Poland by night trains to
demonstrate dental polishing machines to district dental laboratories, all of
course state-owned and all business was in cash. I even invested in a large map
of Poland with colored pins indicating locations where my dental machines were
sold and where there was still a potential for more sales.
|
“Documentation” of a
conversion of an electric motor for Singer machine to dental polishing
machine
|
Enchanted
by glamour of British capitalism
On April 16th 1958, I graduated from
Polytechnic with a master’s degree in electronic engineering. I already had a
job at the Institute of Radio Broadcasting at the same university. My financial
situation was comfortable, due to a number of entrepreneurial endeavors, such
as repairing and designing moisture meters for grain and “underground”
production (conversion) of motors for sewing machines into denture polishing
machines. These two endeavors were hardly related to my official position as a
research assistant at the university, but handsomely paid for my comfortable
life in the depressing mediocrity of Communist Poland. My sex life was stable, but under a degree of
stress. Once I graduated from Polytechnic with a master’s degree in electronic
engineering my girlfriend, Elisabeth, started to apply pressure on me for a
marital commitment. Later, under her pressure and deception (she claimed to be
pregnant) I succumbed to her machination and she became my first wife.
Apparently, her loyalty to me was questionable, because a year later she
offered her services as an informant to the Secret Police, to get even with me,
after I decided to move out. This was unknown to me, until in 2010 I received
copies of documents from the Polish Secret Police archives, now open to the
public.
After 1956 life in Poland became more bearable.
Borders were opened to travel to visit family members in the West. Foreign
tourists appeared to visit Polish towns as well. All of it stimulated my interest in how
people lived in the forbidden Capitalist societies, while being geographically
close, at the same time were hopelessly inaccessible. Passports were issued
only for Polish citizens who had family in the West, guaranteeing that
relatives cover travel and living expenses. Unfortunately I had no such
relatives, but I had a close friend, Reniek Odulinski, who had an uncle in
London and he was about to visit him. I
asked Reniek if he could contact a student organization that could provide us
with summer work to pick strawberries or plums during the summer. Reniek outperformed himself. He contacted the Polish
Students’ Organization in London, which comprised mostly children of Polish
émigrés, all opposed to Communism. The leader of this group was Andrzej
Stypulkowski, who also worked for Free Europe Radio. Stypulkowski’s father was
one of the leaders of the resistance movement during the German occupation. After
the war he was arrested by the Soviets and interrogated and eventually tried in
Moscow. Fortunately, he survived and was sent back to Poland. He and his young
son Andrzej were whisked away to England with the help of friends in the anti-Communist
underground. At that time the local the Polish Secret Police (UB-Bureau of Security)
was even more oppressive than their Soviet masters. It was very wise for
Stypulkowski to leave Poland with his son as quickly as possible.
Andrzej through his contacts with the British
Union of Students procured for Reniek an invitation to a summer camp, where 10
Polish students could pick strawberries, plums etc. in English orchards.
Housing and minimal pay were also provided.
Saying goodbye to Reniek, Stypulkowski mentioned that while in London he
met the director of Polish Student Travel Office in Warsaw, who could
facilitate passports for invited students. His name was Janusz Pelc. When Reniek returned to Wroclaw with invitations
for the summer jobs he also mentioned the name of Janusz Pelc. Then my friend
Karol Pelc recalled that he may be his cousin, who for a while was working as a
journalist and was now delegated by the Communist party to supervise sensitive
travels of Polish students to hostile western countries.
We selected seven friends who would like to
travel to England to work in the orchards over the summer. Reniek, Karol and I invited Leszek Szlachcic
and Andrzej Witkowski. The remaining four places we offered to managers in the Student
Travel Office, to do with them whatever they saw fit. We included the Student Travel Office in our
plans to try and afford ourselves some assurance that they wouldn’t obstruct the
bureaucratic process of applying for our passports. We had some concerns about
the legality of our arrangement because all of us had already graduated from
Polytechnic Institute except one person, Mr. Glazier, Reniek’s cousin. Officially, we were no longer university
students. Officials in the Student Travel Office quickly allocated the remaining
four invitations to their own girlfriends.
In July 1958 Reniek and I moved to Warsaw and stayed at the Student
Hostel on the main street in Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście (Krakow Suburb). The
historical name of the hostel was and still is “Dziekanka” (rectory). It was built in the 15th century as a rectory
for the dean of St. John parish. We did
not expect passport formalities to last long. Unfortunately, the Passport
Office dragged its feet, probably investigating our political attitudes, and
two more months passed before we got out passports allowing us to travel to
England. It was already the middle of September. What surprised us was that the one person deemed
ineligible to travel on a student invitation, was a student, Mr. Glazier. He
was the only one to whom the Passport Office refused a passport. No explanation
was given.
In 1958, Brussels hosted the World’s Fair,
Expo 58. It was a showcase for culture and products from many countries. We
decided to visit Expo 58 on the way to England. The Polish authorities allowed us to take only
$5 per person for travel expenses. Fortunately, we could purchase railway
tickets with the local Polish currency which was not universally convertible.
To survive a few days trip and stay in Brussels, during Expo 58, we equipped
ourselves with imperishable food, such as hard, dark chocolate, dry Polish
sausage called “hunter sausage” and a few large loaves of bread. The four
girlfriends of the officials from the Travel Office were traveling with us. In
Berlin we had to change trains. When we moved our belongings the sack with the
loaves of bread came untied bread started rolling along the station platform to
the amusement of passersby.
When in Brussels we pooled our meager hard
currency resources and found a small hotel, in which we rented one room with a
few beds. All of us crowded in to this room for three days, after which we were
expelled by management, which did not find our presence sufficiently
profitable. The lady in charge of the hotel occasionally inspected our room in
the wee hours, checking to make sure we did not share beds with the girls. She was surprised that we did not. All three days in Brussels we ate chocolate,
hunter sausage and bread. The result was constipation. After being kicked out of the hotel, we had
no choice but to board a train to the resort town of Ostend where the train would
be loaded onto the English Chanel ferry and continue to London.
We arrived in Ostend at 9 p.m. and found that
the last ferry had already left. The next would depart in the morning. We had
no choice but to sleep at the railway station.
Here, unlike in Poland where the railway stations served as overnight
shelters for travelers, the buildings were locked at night. Sleeping on the
street was not feasible in late September when cold wind from the English
Chanel surely would have resulted in us freezing to death. We begged the Station
Master to allow us to stay in the building. He agreed on the condition that he
would lock us up in the building for the night. We were not alone in our
misery. There were also three English students in the same situation. Once
locked in the building we went to the station restaurant and opened our bottles
of vodka that we had carried with us from Poland as a universal bartering
currency. We didn’t sleep much and in
the morning we got on the ferry which took us to London. In London, on the railway
platform was Andrzej Stypulkowski, disgusted, because he expected us two months
ago. We were supposed to be in England in June and July, not in September and
October. All the strawberries and plums were harvested already and Stypulkowski
didn’t know what to do with us.
|
Polytechnic Diploma from
Wroclaw Polytechnic with a specialty of electronic measurements.
|
Head-on collision
with an English potato
Upon our arrival at the farm we were housed
in the former barracks of the British Air force from WWII. It was a large
building with a glass roof. We slept together with probably 50 other seasonal
young workers from a dozen countries. We Poles were the minority. Most were from Yugoslavia, the only Communist
country to allow its citizens free travel to Western Europe. That night was
nightmarish. Cold rain drummed on the glass roof and thin, shabby blankets,
probably never washed, did not protect us from the cold. There was no heating. In the morning, we had to be out of bed at 6
a.m. to indulge in a skimpy breakfast with black lukewarm coffee. Our small
group of Poles, Andrzej, Leszek, Reniek and I were all assigned to different
three person units. Each team had to pick up potatoes dug out by the mechanized
device pulled by the tractor. I noticed that the Yugoslavians maneuvered
themselves to the positions of authority. They were frequent visitors to this
farm. They spoke better English than anyone else. In sharp contrast, I couldn’t
utter a single sentence in English—I might as well have been deaf and mute.
The tractor was faster and more efficient than our ability to gather
the potatoes. It made a full circle and was pushing us from behind. There was
no option to pick up fewer potatoes than the others in the team. The team was paid
by its number of baskets. My companions came here to make money. I came there
more as a tourist. There was a short break at noon then we resumed our potato
gathering again until sunset.
I couldn’t stretch for eight hours. What
irritated me the most was that the driver of the tractor, a Yugoslavian had
with him a transistor radio blasting at full volume a very popular song in
Italian, “Volare, Ho! ... Ho! ... Cantare, Ho! ... Ho! ...” At that time this
song was performed by many American and European singers—one of them, Dean Martin. In the evening, I collapsed in my bunk. The next
morning I was so stiff and exhausted that I couldn’t get up for breakfast. I
decided to desert this place before it killed me. When I announced my
intentions to my Polish companions, they were outraged. Leszek was the most
outraged and scolded me saying that I was a disgrace to the Polish Nation by
confirming to the English Masters the image of a lazy Polish worker.
My argument was that the potatoes in England
looked the same as potatoes in Communist Poland, only in Poland I didn’t have
to work as hard. I would learn nothing about the Free World staying here,
except that in England, there are two classes—Proletariats and blood suckers.
What’s more, I could start believing in it and I could be converted into a
Communist. I felt that I had some options and resources for another two weeks to
stay in England and then return to Poland and its Polish potatoes, friendlier
on the diner plate than laying in the British soil. My optimistic attitude was
based on the fact that when leaving Wroclaw I brought with me a British bill of
10 pounds, which I purchased from Mr. Januszkiwicz, my coworker at Polytechnic.
Its value was equivalent to probably $300 in 2012 money. In addition, I had
with me a transistor radio to barter or sell. It was the first battery operated
radio made in Poland. The name of this radio was “Szarotka” (Edelweiss).
Through a combination of hitchhiking and train I arrived in London and found my
way to the home of Boleslaw Odulinski, Reniek’s uncle.
Mr. Odulinski was a former Polish soldier of
General Ander’s Army, who was fighting alongside the British in North Africa
and at Monte Casino in Italy. He also knew my father, Franciszek Czekajewski,
because both were working, before the war, in Czestochowa for the Post,
Telegraph and Telephone Company. After
the war, Odulinski refused to return to Communist Poland and settled in London.
He invited me to stay in his home for two weeks. In exchange, I gave him my
transistor radio, a novelty at that time. I also felt secure that I had as a
last resort my 10 pound note. I needed to break my 10 pound note into smaller
bills at the bank. The note I brought from Poland looked different than the other
British currency I had seen while in London. It looked more like a private
check than money. It had no picture on it. I had purchased my banknote from Mr.
Januszkiewicz who supposedly parachuted from Great Britain into Poland during
the war as a liaison officer with the Polish underground. I assumed that the British
had given him this money for his clandestine operation. Since I couldn’t speak two words of English,
I asked Mr. Odulinski’s daughter to go with me to the bank to change my 10
pound note into one pound denominations. When we got to the bank, we decided
that I would wait outside while she conducted the “banking business” since she
was fluent in English. After a while, she emerged and asked me to scram
immediately. The bank officials determined that the note was a forgery. They
even produced a letter to this extent. They demanded to know who brought this
money to England. She told the bank officials that a Polish visitor, who had already
left the country, had given her the note. Her story saved me from a police
investigation. Upon returning to Poland
I confronted Mr. Januszkiewicz, who sold me the 10 pound note and requested that
he return my Polish money. Fortunately, I had a letter from the bank certifying
that his pound note was bogus. After
some hesitation, Mr. Januszkiewicz returned my money.
To this day I am not sure who was telling the
truth. Maybe the British gave him the bogus note when he parachuted to Poland
during the war or the British cancelled the validity of old notes, because too
many were forged. Regardless, I was left with no spending money and was forced
to return to Poland. Before I left London I visited the British Library, the
same where Carl Marx wrote Das Kapital and found a book on different methods of
measuring moisture. It was very relevant to my work at the institute, where I
designed and repaired moisture meters for grain. After my return to Poland I
wrote my first paper and it was published in a technical monthly “Pomiary,
Automatyka, Kontrola” (Measurements, Automation and Control). I used this book as the base for this article.
Two years later, when I showed this paper to Professor P.A. Tove at Uppsala
University in Sweden, he offered me a job as a research assistant which opened many
doors to many events ending with my emigration to America and building a successful
business here.
Before I left London, I also went around town
visiting different luxurious hotels. At that time every luxury hotel had an
adhesive luggage sticker with a picture and name of the hotel. These stickers
were given freely by the doorman. I
collected a bunch of these stickers. One I especially liked was from Grosvenor-Kensington
Hotel, which exists to this day. I plastered my suitcase with these stickers.
Even as a young man I had a sense of advertising and understood that Polish
girls were admiring western visitors. Each time I traveled by train I carried
my suitcase decorated with these stickers.
These stickers changed the attitude of many a young lady. The result was
that they were very much open for conversation and persuasion, an art in which
I happened to excel.
The first time I left Poland to travel to
Finland and then Sweden my biggest concerns regarding travel were what I would
be eating and where I would be sleeping.
Ironically, these were the least of my worries once I arrived in Finland
and Sweden. My biggest problem was
actually my shortcomings in communicating in a foreign language. My humor did not translate well from my
well-polished Polish wit to my broken, unintelligent English in foreign
countries. My English at that time was
rudimentary at best and my Swedish interlocutors did not speak it any better
than I. In Sweden, the art of conversation (which I had mastered in Poland and
with which could I impress young ladies) was completely useless. I had to rely
on my dancing skills and on the desperation of a small pool of the Swedish
female population dissatisfied with the sluggish behavior of their male
counterparts. They needed two light beers just to build up the courage to ask a
girl to dance.
I returned to Poland humiliated by my
inability to communicate. The first thing I did was hire a private tutor, a
former soldier in the Polish army that had fought Germens in the West. My friend, Andrzej Witkowski shared expanses
of informal conversations with him in English.
I’m not sure how well our tutor spoke English, but it was certainly better
than Witkowski or I. My new tutor
introduced us to the small books of English conversations written for foreign
students by Charles Ewart Eckersley. It was his most important contribution, on
which I built my English knowledge. After 50 years of speaking English at work
and the last 20 at home, I still have trouble with articles and the American
accent. To native English speakers, who wonder about my linguistic
shortcomings, I offer this explanation: I perfected my English in Sweden during
conversations with Swedish girls. Lessons took place in the dark and most often
in a horizontal position. During such conversations both of my hands were busy
with other friendly activities and I had no mind to worry about my spelling. I
was under the impression that they understood me in spite of my Slavic accent
and missing articles.
Meeting an English millionaire farmer on QM2
As time wore on, my current wife Laura and I
had more and more trouble, adjusting our biological clocks to the time changes
while traveling overnight to Europe.
Consequently, we decided to travel from the U.S. to Europe by boat and
return by plane. Fortunately, since 2004 Cunard Line built and now operates a
transatlantic liner, the Queen Mary 2, which covers the distance from N.Y. to
Southampton in England in six days. Traveling this way we can slowly adjust to the
time change, one hour per day, and arrive in England perfectly rested. From
there we usually travel to other destinations by plane. Mostly to Warsaw,
Poland where many of my university colleagues still live. Travel on this
beautiful boat recaptures the glory of traveling on board such magnificent
liners in the last century as the French S.S. Normandy, the German S.S.
Bismarck, the French S.S. Ile de France and tragically, the unfortunate British
RMS Titanic, which sank April 14th, 1912 on its maiden voyage from
Southampton to New York. The Titanic was owned by Cunard, the same Ship line
which now owns and operates QM2. I’ve actually had occasion to sail on the QM2
from N.Y. to Southampton and in April, no less.
In fact, what’s more interesting is that we actually passed over the
grave site of the Titanic on the exact anniversary of its sinking. Our captain declared a minute of silence,
stopped an engine and rang bell as a salute to the victims of the disaster.
In addition to a gradual acclamation to the
international time difference, another benefit of traveling by transatlantic
liner is the opportunity for unique social encounters. Occasionally we were
able to dine with interesting people and other times our company at the dining
table could be really challenging. Most of the people traveling on QM2 in the
Princess Class cabins probably have substantial wealth, as traveling in style
on QM2 is not cheap. Sometimes one can overhear older ladies, for sure widows
of wealthy businessmen, outbidding each other to determine which one of them
has more “dough.” Such ladies are
usually richly decorated in gold and diamonds.
For an ambitious man aspiring to get rich without much work, these ladies
constitute a rare opportunity to wed them, permanently or temporarily. As for
myself, being married and traveling under a close and watchful eye of my lovely
wife, I had no opportunity to pinpoint which of my intrinsic and spiritual
values would be most appreciated by these ladies. I could only speculate.
This particular night, we were sitting at the
dinner table with two other couples. One couple had a large farm in England,
growing spices and herbs, but mostly spinach. As the climate in England does
not allow farming year round they leased large areas of farm land in Spain and
Morocco. In England they had a packaging
and distribution center in the county of Lincolnshire. When I introduced myself
and said that I was born in Poland, the owner of the farm mentioned that he
employed many seasonal Polish workers in his packaging company in England. He
prized them for hard work and most likely little demands on pay. His comment
rekindled my memory of Lincolnshire County, where I picked up potatoes behind
the tractor 50 years ago in 1958. It was my first visit to the glamorous
Western Europe. Maybe the farm where I
was picking up potatoes was the same or in close proximity to the land now
owned by my spinach millionaire?
In jest, I disclosed to my millionaire-farmer,
that some time ago, 50 years to be exact, I worked for one day as a farm boy on
a potato farm in Lincolnshire County. I told him how I was to pick up potatoes
behind the tractor and that the work conditions were harsher then on the
collective farms in Communist Poland. Work on the Lincolnshire farm was back breaking.
I told the farmer on QM2 that I was traveling to England to file a law suit
demanding compensation for damages to my health. Obviously my lower back pains could
be traced back to these old injuries. The farmer didn’t think my joke was very
funny. Nevertheless, my memory drifted
back 50 years to the time when a few friends and I were trying to get out of
Poland to explore “glamorous” Western Europe.
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Laura on the QM2
|
Vacation
in Romania
Upon returning from imperialist Western
Europe after my short-lived employment as a potato gatherer, I increased my
efforts to learn simple English in case I should again find myself stranded in
a nation of imperialists. After a year of
occasional tutoring with a former soldier of the Polish army fighting during
the Second World War alongside the British in North Africa and Italy, I could
communicate in Pidgin English with others who understood some English, but
scantly. As usual, while living in Wroclaw
in Western Poland I experienced major life changes in the vicinity of Swidnicka
Street. This particular day, in the summer of 1959, I was walking by the Polish
Travel Agency “Orbis.” In their window
they had a display advertising a two week summer vacation on the Romanian Black
Sea Coast in the resort town of Mamaia. The price was listed as 2,000 Polish
zloty, which was a bargain even for me. This curiously affordable opportunity
just so happened to catch my attention at a time when my financial situation was
much better than most citizens of the Polish Peoples’ Republic due to my enterprising
spirit and underground activity manufacturing my dental polishing machines.
If I had to say why the trip was so
affordable, I’d have to guess that it had something to do with the fact that
very few Polish people would be excited to visit another Communist state. In addition, Romania was even more oppressive
and underprivileged than Poland. Nevertheless, spending two week’s wages to
bask on the sunny beaches of the Black Sea looked attractive to me and I
enlisted for this trip, paying 2,000 zloty in cash. Orbis also took care of obtaining
the special permit authorizing me to travel in countries within the Socialist
block, to which Romania was faithful.
At that time, traveling by plane was nearly
unheard of leaving the only way to travel to Romania by train, which took two solid
days and nights. Fortunately, a sleeping car was included in the total cost of my
vacation. To reach the Romanian coast one had to travel through the town of
Bratislava in Slovakia, which is located on the border with Austria, on the
banks of the Danube River. Next was a leg through Hungary and Romania to the port
town of Constanca. From there buses took us to Mamaia. The train that brought
us to Constanca originated in Warsaw where it stopped for some passengers
returning to Western Europe from Moscow. Our train had a short stop in Wroclaw,
where I and a few other Polish tourists joined the Orbis travel tour. We Poles
traveled in style in sleeping cars with coupons for dinner and drinks in the
dining car. The rest of the travelers on
the train had to sit on barren benches in second class cars which were
overcrowded. Since it was a long trip I
decided to walk along the train and visit different compartments to find some
interesting girls to converse with, preferably in English.
Unfortunately such girls I did not find; but
I found group of 10 American students, all male, who after visiting Moscow and
Warsaw were returning home via Vienna in Austria. With hopes of polishing my
English, I engaged them in conversation. Time was passing quickly in the
Americans’ company and shortly I noticed that the train stopped at the
Czechoslovakian border town of Bratislava. Soon the border patrol officer opened a door
and asked the Americans for passports. They gathered their passports and handed
them to the officer. He disappeared for 15 minutes and returned with their
passports handing them over to one of the students for distribution to their owners.
He did not ask me for a passport, assuming that I was one of the Americans.
Apparently he didn’t compare the number of passports with the number of people
in the compartment. I escaped his
scrutiny.
Shortly after the train started moving and by
chance I looked through the window noticing that the train became much shorter.
Only three cars in the front of the train were moving while my car, along with
seven others, was still standing on the platform of the station. My suitcase
and identity card I needed was in the sixth sleeping car. I panicked. I
approached the conductor asking him where we were going. He replied that in a
minute or two we would cross the border bridge on the Danube River and would be
in “Capitalist” Austria. I rushed to the
car’s entrance trying to jump out of the still slow-moving train. Unfortunately,
along the train were posted multiple sentries with submachine guns pushing me back
inside the train. These soldiers were a border military unit posted to thwart
any attempt by local Czech or Slovak people to escape via this train to
Austria. They were ordered to shoot anyone attempting to desert their Socialist
homeland.
My situation was different. I refused to go
to Austria. My plans were set to have a nice vacation on the Black Sea in Romania
not on the slopes of the Austrian Alps. Fortunately, the soldiers somehow
comprehended the situation and did not shoot me. Luckily, they were ordered to
shoot people jumping into this train not jumping out. The commanding officer noticed my struggle
with the soldiers and ordered the train to stop and allow me to return to my
sleeping car without penalty. In fact, in my opinion, I should have received
a medal honoring me as a “Hero of Socialist Poland” for my exemplary behavior when
faced with the opportunity to escape to the West. Over the years of Communist
rule many people lost their lives being shot at this border trying to escape
from Communism, while I voluntarily returned to my Socialist motherland. The
reason was that that I like to choose my own moment and place to relocate or
escape and will not be subjected to random chance such as I met in Bratislava.
The moment when I decided to liberate myself from Communist pretension came
five years later and that decision was on my terms.
In the meantime my sleeping car was pulled by
another locomotive and was heading toward Romania via Hungary. In the front of
my compartment door stood a couple of people, obviously students from Sweden.
They could not afford a sleeping car and looked devastated from a lack of
sleep. As with the previous American
students, I struck up a conversation with these two Swedes. Feeling sorry for
their miserable condition, I offered them my bed during the day as I decided to
spend my days in the dining car sipping fine Hungarian red cabernet, Egri
Bikaver (Bulls Blood).
The Swedish couple was very grateful for my
generosity and asked how they could reciprocate. I mentioned to them that my dream
was to visit Sweden, but due to the lack of convertible currency (Polish zloty
at that time could not be converted to any other currency) I had to rely on
some kind of exchange visit, meaning that I could host in Poland one Swedish
student who in turn could invite me as a guest to Sweden. I gave my incidental friends my address and
asked them to inquire if their friends would like to visit Poland for one month’s
time.
After arriving to the Black Sea resort of
Mamaia I enjoyed a beautiful vacation in a hotel which was built and equipped
to Western standards. Apparently, the Westerners failed to appear and the Romanians
had to discount the rooms to brotherly Socialist comrades, like me. After my
return to Poland, I got a letter from a student of mathematics from Uppsala
University. His name was Lars Inge Hedberg who apparently read a little
advertisement placed in student newspaper “Ergo” by my Swedish train
acquaintances. In his letter Lars offered
to come to Poland for one month and host me in Uppsala if I managed to come
there. For a Swede to come to Poland was easy. For me, a visit to Sweden
required serious justification and I risked that my application for a passport
would be rejected under the suspicion that I would never return. Therefore, for
the time being, I asked Lars Inge to come to Wroclaw and in the meantime I was
thinking about my next move needed to get a foreign passport. Lars Inge came to
Wroclaw by car, a SAAB. I took one
month’s vacation to travel with him around Poland. One thing I noticed was his
voracious appetite. He could easily eat six scrambled eggs each morning and
have full meals at noon and dinner. I was happy to see his appetite, because I
took it as an indicator how I would be eating in Sweden. In this case I was
mistaken. Lars’ appetite in Poland was not an indication that he ate similarly
in Sweden. In fact in his home he ate four times less and when I finally arrived
to Uppsala, I was permanently hungry. He commented that food in Sweden is
expensive and by saving on meals he could afford such nice things as a car like
his SAAB. Now, in 2012, after 67 years since its inception, the factory that
manufactured these remarkable Swedish cars is bankrupt. Unfortunately, when inviting Lars to Poland I
failed to negotiate minimum calories in food allocated to this exchange. It was
my fault after all.
Fifty years later I learned from the
documents obtained from the Polish Institute of (Historical) Remembrances, that
Lars Inge Hedberg was mistaken with another Swede, Dr. Beckman who supposedly
worked for British Intelligence. I also learned from the same source the long-forgotten
name of a Swedish student who traveled with me on the train to Romania. His
name was Rejdar Larson. Apparently, I mentioned his name to the Polish secret
agent who interviewed me after my return to Poland from my first trip to
Sweden.
As for Lars Inge Hedberg, after I left Sweden
I did not keep in contact with him. He became a prominent Swedish
mathematician, professor at Linkoping University in Central Sweden and
President of the Swedish Society of Mathematicians. In 2005 during one of my
visits to Sweden I called him from Uppsala, and we had a nice chat about his
trip to Poland in 1959. Fifty years later while on the phone with Lars Inge I
was tempted to remind him that during his visit to Poland in 1959 he stretched
the limits of my hospitality when, in the movie theater in Wroclaw, sitting
next to my wife Elisabeth, he kept her right hand tenderly by his left hand.
Where he kept his right hand I could only speculate, because the theater was
dark. I could ask Lars about that situation, but I did not. Now it’s too late.
I will never know for sure where he kept his right hand, because Lars died a
few months later after our conversation.
The more I think about the wandering hands of
Lars Inge Hedberg, the more I suspect that such behavior is common with mathematicians.
Since then I never take a chance sitting my wife next to a mathematician. The
point of this chapter is that that while traveling to Romania in 1959 I secured
an invitation to Sweden which changed the rest of my life.
Cotton spinners of Bielawa
(Treatise on Socialist economy)
An article in Wroclaw’s Communist Party
Daily, Workers’ Gazette inspired my voyage
to Bielawa, a small town in the southwestern part of Poland. The paper revealed
that in Bielawa, there was no shortage of ham or vodka; however, there was a
shortage of heterosexual men. This was
the main problem troubling the best brains of the Party. The challenge was
unusual. The problem could not be dealt with by the repressive methods of the
Secret Police or propaganda by roving speakers, known as “prelegents”
(propaganda speakers). Officials of the
Communist party could not find any advice on this subject in the volumes written
by Marx, Engels or Lenin. As we know today, the Japanese during WWII set up
special institutions to deal with the natural sexual instincts of their
soldiers. They set up “comfort centers” staffed with mostly Korean females
forced by Japanese occupiers to provide this service. Unfortunately, a decade
later, the Communist government that owned all industry and citizens in Poland,
could not directly copy the Japanese war-time “comfort” technology. The problem
was reversed. In Poland, the “comfort
women” were well known for a millennium, enjoying the art of their profession. Now
they were the last bulwark of private enterprise which Communism left to be
operated by individuals. Bielawa’s
problem was not in the shortage of women but in the shortage of heterosexual
men, comforting or not. It had to be
dealt with according to Polish tradition by an individual approach.
In Bielewa, at the beginning of the twentieth
century, Germans built large textile factories, now inherited by Poland. They
were staffed with 90% women. The pay in the textile industry was poor and able-bodied
men were not eager to settle in the desolate town of Bielawa. They preferred
the larger city of Wroclaw with a strong machining industry and better pay.
Perturbed deeply by this news, I decided to
take personal remedial action and travel to Bielawa to assess the situation.
For this purpose, I decided to combine my mission with official business. I was hoping that while in Bielawa I could
procure some orders for our Institute, which would pay my monthly salary. In
addition, if my trip to Bielawa was for business reasons, the Institute could
cover all travel expenses. I convinced
the head of the Institute, Professor Bincer, that my trip would be beneficial
to the Institute. After a few hours trip from Wroclaw on a dingy bus from PKS
(Polish Bus Travel Company) I arrived in Bielawa. Immediately, I went to the local textile mill
where a few hundred young women were working on three shifts, manufacturing
textiles for home and export sales. My first stop was the office of the Vice
President of Plant Operations, where the young engineer in charge cordially
received me. Not losing any time, I presented him with the reason for my visit.
“Dear Comrade Director, I represent the
Institute of Radio Broadcasting of Wroclaw Polytechnic. We specialize in a
number of fields, which may benefit your factory. For example, we can measure
noise and soundproof against it, we can measure humidity in the mill
environment, and we can check to see if your lightning rods placed on the
building’s roofs are properly grounded. Proper grounding will protect you and
your building from lightening, which causes sudden death and fires. If you find
any of our services beneficial to your enterprise, a combined team of our
scientists is willing to extend to you a “personal gratification” equivalent to
10% of the value of an entire order placed with our Institute.”
The plant manager got up from behind his desk
and disappeared to the next room. I was sitting there, worrying that he was
calling the police to inform them of an attempted bribery of a state official.
Every minute that passed seemed like an eternity. Then, suddenly, the director
reappeared with a strange looking device in his hand. It was something like a
twisted bicycle wheel. Such deformation happens to a bicycle wheel when one
drives a bike straight into a wall. It was about 20 cm (8 inches) in diameter. It
was very heavy and made of solid cast iron. Along the edge it had a very smooth
groove milled with great precision. It was a guide for the cotton thread. The
strange twisted shape of this guide was required for machines winding cotton
bobbins. The delivery of cotton thread should be dense in the bobbin center and
sparse toward the edges. The end product should look like a bobbin not as a
drum. This was accomplished by a twist in the wheel.
The director
informed me that no one in Poland could supply such devices, especially when
his order called for only 600 pieces. The whole production of Bielawa Textile
Mill depended on the supply of these cast iron guides. Until now the factory
relied on the stock of old German made guides. Unfortunately, these guides were
cracking fast, and there were only a few spares left.
“Dear Comrade Engineer,” the director said. “If
you could manufacture such guides the whole factory would bless you, and you
could even be decorated with a medal:
Hero of Socialist Work.”
Neither offer impressed me, but nevertheless,
I hesitantly accepted this assignment. I
knew from the start, that we couldn’t make such devices because our meager
resources consisted of two voltmeters, three soldering irons and one drill
press for wood. These tools, for sure could not be useful for casting and
machining iron. I packed the heavy cast iron guide in my briefcase and shook
the hand of the technical director. The next steps I took led me to the
employees’ club-café, where I expected to glance at female employees longing
for the company of a heterosexual man. To kill time before my evening departure
I ordered a bottle of apple wine and a cup of dreadful coffee.
A multitude of young women were coming and
going but none expressed any interest in my lonely persona. I was thinking that
they did not realize that I was there with a special altruistic mission in mind
from which they could benefit. The one attractive woman I approached dismissed
me with scorn. This left me with the conviction that the journalist of Workers’ Gazette exaggerated the whole
situation. Disappointed, I checked the time table of the busses to Wroclaw and
I found a bus leaving at 4 p.m. I paid
for the wine and coffee and left for the bus station. When I arrived at the bus
station, I faced a small crowd of people waiting for the same trip. When the
bus arrived, I noticed that one man, elegantly dressed in a beige coat
expressed special interest in me. I was sure that it was an agent of the Secret
Police assigned to track me down and get information about my visit to the
strategic center of the textile industry.
|
Cotton mill in Bielawa,
Poland
|
The next day I presented to Professor Bincer
the cast iron thread guide. The Professor took one look at this device and told
me that if I would like to continue enjoying the status of junior assistant, I
had to find somebody who could make such a thing, because he had no idea what
to do with it. As a consolation, the Professor mentioned, that if by chance, I
succeeded in finding a manufacturer for such a device who could fill an order
of only 600 guides, then he would present this project to the University
Project Review Committee as a Complex Audio System for the entire Bielawa
textile factory.
At that time I still was living with my aunt
and uncle on Smoluchowskiego Street. My uncle, Eugeniusz Woyczynski, after the
war, had a small foundry that cast church bells from bronze obtained by melting
statues of Adolf Hitler and Frederick the Great. Later his small church bell
foundry was “nationalized” and he found work at a large state enterprise making
earth-moving machinery. I asked him if he knew someone in his factory that could
make such complex cast iron guides.
My uncle, while working at the state enterprise, still believed in the
obsolete idea that everyone should do the best work he is able to do in
whatever political system he lived. This made him rather unpopular with the
Communist Party Organization, because it was up to the party organization to
maintain workers’ discipline. Engineer
Woyczynski, who had a tarnished past and suspicious intentions was the last
person the Party would trust with such an assignment. In addition, plant workers considered him
kind of a mania c, who organized workshop meetings enticing them with solid
work in spite of meager pay. Finally, according to the principle that “No good
deed will be left unpunished,” factory management relegated him to the technical
library where he could not encourage much dissention among the books. He worked
there until his retirement.
At the time of my problems with cast iron
guides, he was still managing production and he was acquainted with the head
engineer with an unusual name, Cesarz, which in Polish means “Cesar.” When Mr.
Cesarz came to our home I presented him with the cast iron guide from Bielawa.
He said that in the factory’s foundry there was a person of unmatched talents. He could make unusual forms to cast difficult
products. He could apply his talents, but he would have to be paid extra in
cash. He would cast our guides at night when no one would see what he was
doing. Mr. Cesarz also found a factory machinist who could machine the smooth
groove along the edge of the guide. Within a month I was presented with 600
guides for a price of 250 zloty each, payable in cash. How Mr. Cesarz divided
this money between his co-conspirators remains to this day a mystery. The
important thing is that no one ended up in prison and the factory in Bielawa
was able to manufacture textiles for another decade, long after I left
Socialist Poland for better pastures in the West.
Professor Bincer invoiced the factory in
Bielawa for 950 zloty for each guide, which was sent to the university account.
The university took 50% of the amount as statutory overhead. From the remaining
amount of 285,000 zloty I had to cover manufacturing expenses and 10%
commission for the director of the textile mill. Professor Bincer selflessly
refused any additional share. He was already paid a statutory fee of 40 zloty
per hour for project supervision. Since such a large sum could not be withdrawn
from the university all at once, we had to split it into monthly installments.
Now we had another hurdle to cross. I troubled myself with the question of how we
could get this money from the university account and into our pockets. All of us, junior assistants, were authorized
to work only 40 hours per month on extra research projects at a pay rate of 15
zloty per hour. All engineers, including
myself, had already met this limit. I needed more people who could be listed as
participants in this project. In desperation, I decided to venture into the
lion’s lair or maybe more accurately, the viper’s pit—the departments of
Marxism and Leninism Philosophy and department of Political Economy. “Researchers” in these miserable departments
had no extra work. They were neglected by the Communist system to which they
were obedient servants. I felt pity for them. I approached them with a proposal
of 10% commission if they would agree to be listed as coworkers on the Bielawa
project. I explained to them that their
only obligation was to drag themselves, once a month, to the university
cashier, collect payment for work they did not do and sign the payroll list.
Usually such a system is known to be used by
United States politicians. At that time I was naively thinking that I invented
this system. Overall, the Bielawa project worked well. Marxists-Leninists lived
up to their Communist mentality. They always promptly and honestly returned 90%
of the money to me with a word of appreciation for giving them an opportunity to
correct the mistakes of the Communist system.
They were Capitalists at heart. They were precursors of the same group
which captured the steering wheel of Democratic government in Poland after the
collapse of Communism. They were older colleagues of former President Alexander
Kwasniewski and Solidarity Heroes, former Communists, who now became advocates
of Democracy.
In the end the biggest benefactor of Bielawa
Project was the director of the textile mill, he got 10% commission, cash, tax
free from the top of the university invoice. Factory employees benefited as well as the
factory continued operation for the next decade on guides made under this
project. The Polytechnic in Wroclaw also benefited, because it received 50% of
the total sum (285,000 zloty) in the form of overhead. Overhead contributed to
necessary expenses, as libraries, maintenance and probably support for the useless
Marxist-Leninist Departments. I just facilitated a generous transfer of funds
from a wealthy industry to a cash-starved academic institution.
Mr. Cesarz and his artisan of cast iron molds
got what they asked for. They became unusually productive and society benefited
from their work. I tripled my income for a year. But under the Communist system
we were all criminals. If the Communist government had enforced its laws
regulating economy, we all would have ended up in prison. I knew that I couldn’t operate for long under
such a system. I had to go somewhere without all the finagling and bribery necessary
to be an entrepreneur. Somewhere where I
could set up my own business and operate it according to known principles. I left Communist Poland not because of hunger
or persecution; but simply because the atmosphere of living a constant lie was
unbearable for me.
How I built
a TV station in the city of Radom
One day, probably in spring of 1959,
Professor Stefan Bincer for whom I worked as a “technical assistant” making
money by repairing moisture meters for grain, asked me if I knew something
about television. I knew a little, but his question intrigued me. I asked why
he was interested in television. He told me that now, in Poland, there was an
explosion of TV stations. They built large ones in the large cities, but neglected
the smaller provinces. For small communities located in the valleys or many
miles from the main TV transmitters, the TV signal was weak and people were
eager to have better reception. One such town, located near Warsaw was Radom.
It was far enough away that the people had difficulty receiving signals from the
newly built TV station in Warsaw.
Professor Bincer apparently recognized my
budding commercial talents and asked me to travel to Radom to evaluate the situation
locally. In the meantime he was told that one of the students in the same
department of electronics knew how to build small TV relay stations. His name was Andrzej Drozd. He learned to
build TV receivers and transmitters in his basement and even installed one on
the highest peak of the Sudeten Mountains, Sniezka (Snowcap). His transmitter was picking up signals from
TV stations in Prague, in the Czech Republic and transmitted it to Wroclaw.
Anybody who had a TV receiver in Wroclaw could see Czech TV on his Russian
built TV set. The TVs were Russian
because there was no Polish production of television receivers and only occasionally
were Soviet-built receivers available. At
that time all TV was black and white. In
fact I had one, purchased from a Polish farmer who repatriated from the Soviet
Union and did not know what to do with it. This TV set was not sensitive enough
to receive Andrzej’s signals, so I had to build a front stage amplifier to make
it operational. I did not realize that
my amplifier reversed the phase of the signal transposing the color display so
that black was shown as white and in reverse. It was difficult to enjoy
programs in negatives, but it proved that Andrzej’s repeater worked.
At the time when I was traveling to Radom to
pitch the TV repeater for their city, Professor Bincer hired Andrzej as a chief
consultant who in turn was teaching all of us how to build such devices for
sale. I traveled by train all night and
when I arrived in Radom I was really tired. Not knowing where to start I went
first to the county office. Walking down a long corridor, I noticed a door with
a name: Security Services, Colonel Bieruta.
I knocked on this door and a small man appeared asking what kind of
business I came with. I told him that I represented a group of scientists from
Wroclaw Polytechnic who built retransmission TV stations and we had heard that
Radom was one of the cities that may benefit from our stations because the TV
signal from Warsaw was extremely bad. If
the citizens of Radom would like to enjoy the tribute to the Soviet Armed
Forces in Moscow on the anniversary of the October Revolution, we in Wroclaw
were eager to help show it on local TV.
Colonel Bieruta looked at me with interest
and commented that he was ready to die for the Revolution but he was not sure that
I was ready to make the same sacrifice as well. He asked me what kind of profit
I personally expected to have from such an enterprise. Then I explained to him
a plot which was thought out by Professor Bincer. First we would have to
establish a citizen’s committee to build the TV station in Radom. This
committee would comprise prominent citizens or party secretaries, directors of
local factories and municipal government. Then a bank account should be opened,
not in the State Central Bank, but in the Local Savings Union. Each of the
prominent citizens should invest the equivalent of $10 to start the business.
Then the rest of the money should come from the local factories, some of which
were very rich, as Radom was for many years a center of the armaments industry.
In the next stage, the citizen’s committee should issue two purchase orders.
One order should be submitted to the Wroclaw Polytechnic and should constitute
50% of the total cost. For this money we could purchase the needed components
to build the relay station. Polytechnic Institute was needed because only state
enterprises had availability to purchase needed electronic components. The second
order, for the remaining 50% should be addressed and sent to the Group of
Scientists under the guidance of Professor Bincer and should specify that the
money is for the research and development of the retransmission TV station in
Radom. After completion of the retransmission
TV station all of the “conspirators” including Andrzej and Professor Bincer
would get paid. We could withdraw the money from the Local Savings Union.
Apparently, in this strictly Communist society, there was still a window of
opportunity to use the Savings Union to pay money to individuals.
Somewhere I also mentioned to colonel Bieruta
that his personal interest in this enterprise, in form of “commission” would be
appropriately taken care. Once the
entire scheme became clear to Colonel Bieruta he invited me, naturally at my
expense, to the local restaurant, “European.”
Once at the restaurant he ordered 100 grams of vodka chased by marinated
herring which was followed with a few more rounds of vodka. Once in good
spirits, Colonel Bieruta started to address me as “Comrade Engineer” and started
complaining that the central Communist government in Warsaw did not appreciate
and value people like him, who 10 years ago were guarding Socialism and killing
enemies of the state sent to Poland as saboteurs from London or America. Now
our government had become soft and treacherous. It bent over to the demands of
enemies of the state. One day good times would return to Poland and people like
me and Colonel Bieruta would be again appreciated. I was avoiding this subject, not being sure
if this was just a meaningless rant of a drunkard or a deliberate provocation. After
the third time I was kicked out of the Communist Youth Organization for dancing
the boogie-woogie and making inappropriate jokes about Communism and Comrade
Stalin, I refined my threshold for interacting without endangering my freedom
or even more importantly, my business.
After two or three hours of drinking our lunch,
the waiter approached me with a bill which again enraged my interlocutor. “Look, Comrade Engineer, in my time, when I
was responsible for the City of Radom Secret Police no waiter was brave enough
to approach me with a bill. When I got to the coatroom, I always found few
hundred zloty stashed in my coat pocket. It was a time of respect. Where is
this country heading now?”
After exchanging customary kisses on both
cheeks with Colonel Bieruta, I concluded that my business in Radom was
successful and it was time to head to the railway station to board my third
class car to return to Wroclaw and report my findings to Professor Bincer. In
fact, my mission to Radom was fully successful and soon we had received two
orders, one for Polytechnic Institute covering the cost of the hardware and
another order addressed to the Research and Development Group under the
leadership of Professor Stefan Bincer for the design work of the hardware and
antenna. In fact, the antenna was designed by another colleague of Andrzej--Mr.
Daniel Bem, who later became the dean of the electronic department and a member
of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Once
we received the orders, Andrzej Drozd started building the TV repeater and
Daniel Bem designed the appropriate antenna.
Choosing the antenna’s location for the TV station
In a few months, the time had come for my
next visit to Radom. This time the official reason was to choose the best place
for the antenna and transmitter location. For this visit, two other people came
with me to Radom, Mr.Vladek Krawiec, a technician, and Andrzej, the chief
designer. My function was more of a political nature to make sure that these
two didn’t talk too much about finances.
|
Mr. W. Krawiec. Technician who
helped to build the TV station in Radom, Poland.
|
|
Friends in Wroclaw who built
TV relay stations (from the left Eugeniusz Hajek, Jan Czekajewski, Jozef
Smulkowski, Andrzej Drozd). Picture taken in 1980 during one of Jan’s first
visits to Poland
|
Once our lady friends entered our hotel room,
and after customary introductions were followed with shots of cherry vodka I
had to explain to the ladies our precarious position. As scientists of TV we were exposed to high
frequency radiation which in due time may cause irreparable damage to our sex
drive. In the meantime, TV frequency radiation had a stimulating effect. Since
science had yet to determine the longevity of this side effect we had no way of
knowing how long it would last. In a
fashion similar to Madame Curie-Sklodowska, we were sacrificing our health for
science and for the city of Radom which desperately needed TV reception.
The two ladies listened with some interest to
my elaboration, but were more down to earth then I expected them to be. They
asked how well I knew President Bieruta, and if I could mention to him that
they were interested in two weeks’ vacation in the resort in Lower Silesia,
preferably Kudowa Springs. I assured
them that I had a cordial relationship with the bank principal and that there
would be no problem with their vacation schedule. Then atmosphere then became
more relaxed, supported by rounds of cherry vodka, while it lasted. When the clock
struck 12 midnight, it was time for our ladies to dress up and go, because the
next day we had to be sober for an official party with the entire nobility of the
Radom municipality and the citizen’s committee for the construction of the TV station.
Ball of
the television committee
The next day as I already mentioned the citizen’s
committee decided to throw the biggest party with dancing at a prominent local
restaurant, Polonia. For this fete, a
large room was rented on the upper floor and a lavish collection of dishes for the
enjoyment of participants was provided. We were served breaded pork cutlets
with cabbage, potatoes and shredded red beets. Copious amounts of quality vodka
were ordered. We had our choice of appetizers
to select from including herring marinated in oil or herring potato salad. Incidentally, the marinated herring nearly led
to a tragic, counter-revolutionary incident. The day before I also called my
alternative love, Zofia in Lodz, to come and enjoy herself at the expense of
the Radom TV committee. Now I do not remember how I was able to accommodate her
in the same room as three male scientists, or paid for a separate room for her
in the same hotel. The orchestra also provided for music for the dancing
enjoyment of participants, numbering close to 50. I don’t think that the
members of the committee were numbered more then 10, but apparently they
invited anybody they knew who would like to get drunk for free.
After the atmosphere became more relaxed, the
dancing started. Obviously President Bieruta was the first to lead the dance to
the tune of Tango-Milonga. He asked
Zofia to be his dancing partner. I
didn’t object mostly due to the fact that the scene soon became farcical because
of the discrepancy of the director’s meager height and Zofia’s tall stature. Zofia
was much taller, I would say nearly twice. Besides, Zofia had a prominent bosom
which during dancing resided on both ears of President Bieruta. It was
difficult to maintain my composure and refrain from laughing. I abstained from
dancing and instead observed the pirouettes of President Bieruta with Zofia.
At one moment our technician Vladek, who
already had too much to drink, got up from his seat with a fork in his hand. On
the top of the fork a piece of unfinished herring was dangling, dripping with
oil. Vladek was aiming it directly at Bieruta and Zofia and I realized that he
was about to hit the President in his back. The president was completely
unaware of the situation with both his ears clogged by Zofia’s bosom. He could
not be warned. We had no time to lose. Andrzej and I rapidly approached Vladek
and grabbed his fork. The situation would have become tragic, if Vladek, besides
inflicting a spinal injury, had also stained President Bieruta’s jacket with
herring oil. Once Vladek realized his inappropriate behavior he started crying
and apologized to President Bieruta for his outburst. He was lucky. Bieruta was still trusted by the
Communist party to wear a concealed pistol and could have shot Vladek in
revenge.
I was also concerned about a good financial
relationship between us, “scientists,” Polytechnic itself and the Radom TV committee,
which was holding all the money. Fortunately, this part of the business did not
suffer and Bieruta sympathized with Vladek’s drunken outburst. When both gentlemen exchanged wet kisses I
knew we would get our money, which was my main function as a commercial
commissar in Radom. I didn’t know at the
time, that all the parties the TV Committee organized for us during our stay in
Radom were paid for with the money that should have been paid to Polytechnic.
Shortly after, I returned to Wroclaw and left for my trip to Finland and Sweden.
Professor Bincer died during my first month’s stay in Finland and I was
dismissed from Polytechnic as a result of departmental reorganization. Nevertheless,
my colleagues finished the job of building the TV station in Radom which
functioned uninterrupted for the next 25 years. Apparently, our group of design
engineers, under the “leadership of Professor S. Bincer” had no difficulty
collecting 50% of the promised pay. Unfortunately, the Radom TV committee ran short
of money to be paid to Polytechnic. Apparently, the expense of lavish parties
was higher than the cost of the components that Polytechnic had purchased for
the equipment. How it was resolved, I don’t know as I was already living in
Sweden beyond the reach of Socialist authorities.
Twenty five years later, after I was already
a U.S. citizen and owner of my own company I read in a Polish paper, that the citizens
of the city of Radom were protesting the closing of the TV relay station that
we built in 1959. Apparently the new, larger TV station located on the Mount of
Holy Cross did not provide as strong a signal as our small transmitter did. In
spite of trespassing many moral and Socialist laws, we did a good job of
bringing two generations of Radom citizens to the world of black and white TV.
Passport to the “Nordic Haven”
In today’s political climate, younger
generations do not understand the difficulties that Polish people had to travel
abroad. Nowadays we all have passports
at home and at a moment’s notice, we can leave the country and visit foreign
lands. Other countries are more defensive of comers rather than goers. The U.S.
is paranoid of immigrants who can supposedly take away jobs from Americans,
even if there are no Americans that would take such jobs, like lettuce picking
or removing asbestos from old houses. In Communist Poland where I spent my
youth, the government had another approach. It was afraid of people leaving the country,
especially educated people.
The government assumed that it owned all the
people and told them what to do and how much they would be paid. It was by design
modern-day slavery. To keep people inside the country passports were issued
only after a person applied for such a document and only to such people who could
be trusted to return. After returning, the Secret Police would debrief them
about their foreign visit, questioning them about whom they met and if they
were approached by foreign intelligence services. In the first years
(1945-1956) after the Soviet style system was established in Poland traveling
abroad was nearly impossible, except for a very few trusted people with
connections to the government. After 1956, the system was slightly liberalized
and visits to family members living abroad were allowed, providing that such
family was paying for all travel costs and lodging. The first time I went to the
Western Country was in 1958 officially, as a student to pick potatoes on the
English farm. There was no danger that I would defect Polish Communist
paradise. But this first visit outside the iron curtain wet my appetite for
learning how people live in foreign lands.
Living and
parting with my aunt in Wroclaw
I have to give credit to my aunt, Otylia
Woyczynska who, during her visit to Czestochowa, somehow recognized my
intellectual potential and deemed me worthy of an investment for further
development. Since tenth grade she
invited me to spend summer vacation at her home in Wroclaw and tutored me in
mathematics. She was a mathematician herself, one of a few female students of
mathematics who graduated from Warsaw University before the start of the Second
World War. During the war she married Eugeniusz Woyczynski, a mechanical
engineer who split his time during the war between his company in Warsaw, producing
submachine guns for the Polish underground, and his family home in Czestochowa,
about 200km south west of Warsaw.
At the end of the war in January 1945 Czestochowa was “liberated” by
the advancing tanks of the Soviet army and by unfortunate chance the apartment
house where the Woyczynskis lived was burned down by escaping Germans. Having no place to live, the Woyczynski family
relocated to Wroclaw, formally the German city of Breslau where Eugeniusz took
over a small bronze foundry specializing in casting church bells. He hit the
jackpot with his foundry.
In Poland the Germans had stolen all of the church
bells for metals needed in military armaments. For a while there was a high
demand for church bells and these bells were purchased by parish priests with
cash. To obtain the metal needed to cast church bells the customer, most often
a priest, had to provide his own bronze.
My uncle’s customers did this by knocking down German statues, starting
with Hitler and ending with Frederick the Great. Occasionally, parish priests
brought to my uncle the beautiful statues of Greek goddesses which Eugeniusz
saved for his private admiration. These were rarely melted.
Perhaps he was conscious of the danger that
the pagan sprit imbedded in the indecent statues could transfer to the church
bells and that the bells sound would not inspire prayer, but rather unleash a
plague of hedonistic endeavors. My Aunt
Otylia became a school teacher of mathematics. When my aunt invited me to her
home in 1952, the Woyczynski family had already lived in Wroclaw for five
years. Eugeniusz had already lost his business--confiscated by the state, as
Communists banned any private enterprise to exist. He was then working as an
engineer for a large state factory making earth moving machinery, such as
cranes, excavators, bulldozers, etc.
I must be grateful for them that they took me
under their wings, because my parents could not afford to support me at
Polytechnic University in such a remote location. In fact, during my first
semester at school, my mother fell gravely ill with a mental disorder and my
father’s meager salary at the phone company could hardly support my younger
siblings, Adam born in 1947 and Anna in 1949.
I should say that I had a great rapport with
my Uncle Eugeniusz during the first four years of my residence in their home,
until something unexpected happened, which forced me to look for independent
housing in the form of a rented room from Ms. Zelewska. As usual in my life, the dramatic change was
caused by a young woman. This time it was a girl from Czestochowa that I
invited to Wroclaw in pursuit of happiness. For this purpose I negotiated with
my cousin Marek Czekajewski, also a student in Wroclaw, to use his apartment to
disclose my aforementioned honorable intentions toward said woman. Unfortunately either she did not understand
my intentions or I did not make myself clear enough, she refused to be
cooperative. The girl resisted my advances and my plan ended not only in fiasco,
but in disaster.
One
day I invited her along with my friend Andrzej to my uncle’s apartment to
negotiate plans before her return to Czestochowa. A bottle of apple wine (cider) was a prop to
ease mutual distrust. Before I was able to uncork the bottle, my uncle
Eugeniusz burst into my room, shouting rude and derogatory comments with the
general idea that he was against me bringing hookers to his apartment and if I
chose to do so I should take them (her) to a hotel. Apparently, he was out of
touch with reality, as such hotels did not exist in a Socialist system. In addition, he was shouting derogatory
Russian verbiage, “Poshol Von!” which means in English “Get Lost!” This forced
me to take a defensive position for the sake of this virtuous young woman, who had
resisted my advances for two days. We all left, and it became clear to me that
I could no longer live in such a hostile atmosphere where I was no longer
welcomed.
Living with Ms. Zelewska
The next day I started looking for ads in the
local paper for rooms to let and I found one on Powstancow Slaskich (Silesian
Uprising Street). The land lady was Ms. Zelewska and her apartment was on the
third floor. Ms. Zelewska’s apartment consisted of two small bedrooms separated
by a small galley-like kitchen and a similar sized bathroom. The bathroom had an
old German flow through gas water heater. Because the pilot light was
defective, one had to first light the match, put it inside the gas heater and
then turn the water on. New and unaware visitors could make a fatal mistake by
first turning the water on and then with some delay lighting the match. If one
waited for a few seconds before igniting the match then the gas mixed with air
exploded and could kill you. It nearly happened to my Swedish visitor Lars Inge
Hedberg who was not killed, but his eyebrows and lashes were smoldered. I am
thinking that if he had died my life would be different and I never would have
gone to Sweden and eventually to the United States.
Due to Lars Inge’s mistake, Ms. Zelewska also
lost her bathroom window when it was blown out to the street. The room assigned
to me had a dresser but no bed. Tenants were expected to provide their own bed
or sofa. I chose to purchase a sofa that folded out into a bed. In due course (or
intercourse) this sofa-bed lost its functionality, by caving in the center so I
had to sleep in an unusual position with my head and feet up while my bottom sagged
in the hole. There were some complaints from the occasional female visitors about
my uncomfortable accommodations.
Ms. Zelewska was a moderately attractive lady
in her late thirties, but at that time in my life, a woman of 22 was much too
far over the hill. She was single and I did not encourage her to discuss her
past. Occasionally, she hosted some gentleman who apparently worked with her in
some architectural office on the weekends. One night Ms. Zelewska took a bath
and entered my room dressed in loose nightgown with a bunch of old illustrated German
pornographic magazines in her hand. I immediately suspected that she was after
my virginity and decided not to succumb to her Nazi provocation. I knew that once I gave up and lowered my
moral standards my door would be closed for any other female visitors.
Ms. Zelewska was a German, probably of Polish
extraction, judging by her obviously Polish name. She was a compassionate lady, who during some
weekends brought to her apartment a lady, who by her own admission was a former
prisoner in a German Concentration Camp in Rewensbruk, where German doctors
performed medical experiments on women prisoners. This lady survived the
concentration camp, but lost her mind. She
was sleeping in the kitchen on a folding metal bed. With time she became more
and more paranoid and started accusing Ms. Zelewska of being her German
nemesis. As a result Ms. Zelewska could not invite her over any more.
Fateful meeting of Finnish delegates in “Palacyk”
My adventure started accidentally when I
stopped one evening at the student club “Palacyk” (Little Palace) where I
usually had a hotdog sandwich and sauerkraut stew, known in Poland as
“bigos.” Fueled by such a meal I could
dance until the club was closing at midnight. It was an interesting institution
where students from a few different Wroclaw Universities could gather and dance
until the wee hours to popular jazz bands. At this time dance music was
provided by an American group calling itself The New York Jazz Quartet. It was a band composed of four black
musicians sponsored probably by the U.S. Embassy, as I cannot imagine that a
student club was wealthy enough to pay standard American salaries. The club was located halfway between
Polytechnic Institute and my current residence at the apartment of Ms.
Zelewska.
The following events happened at time when I
already lived in Ms. Zelewska‘s apartment for one year after my graduation in
1958. At that time I was working as a Technical Assistant at the Department of
Radiophony headed by Professor Stefan Bincer In addition to my official
university job, I was also manufacturing dental polishing machines using electric
motors for Singer style sewing machines. This highly profitable “underground”
enterprise allowed me to accumulate substantial profits in non-convertible
polish currency. I faithfully deposited
my earnings between my bed sheets in the dresser. Obviously, I couldn’t keep
them in the bank without reveling illegal (unregistered) income.
On this fateful day when I entered the
“Palacyk” Student Club and reinforced my physique with the usual meal of
sauerkraut stew and bratwurst (kielbasa) I noticed that there was a group of
three foreign looking individuals looking different from the crowd of Polish
students. Eager to get some exposure to the English language I approached them
and struck up conversation. They were glad to hear somebody speaking English,
because they felt dumb, mute and isolated in a purely Polish environment. At
that time in Poland hardy anyone could speak English. They introduced themselves
as representatives from the Finnish Union of Students traveling on behalf of
their organization to different Polish cities to observe life and activities of
ZSP (Association of Polish Students). Within the group was the President of Finnish
Union of Students named Penta Mahlameki, Treasurer of the same organization,
Matti Hagman and a third official whose name escapes my memory. All of them
were drunk already and they were focused on drinking even more. Unfortunately,
they had exhausted their financial resources and were on the verge of depression.
Here I came with an idea for a rescue.
“Gentlemen, if you need more vodka I am ready
to help. I can provide you with money.”
The Finns were surprised. What
would I ask for in exchange, money? Finnish
military defense secrets? They were already
short on dollars. I told them that what I needed was an invitation to Finland. The
invitation had to be on official letterhead from the Finnish Union of Students
stating that The Union would cover my stay and board while I was in Helsinki
for one month. The Finns speedily agreed and I ran to my apartment located
about 2 km away to get a substantial amount of Polish currency to give them. In
about 40 min I was back with a sum equivalent to my three month salary from
Polytechnic Institute. I gave it to the Finnish official and they were
surprised that I didn’t even ask for a receipt. I only insisted that the future
invitation must have a large official rubber stamp, because in Poland, then as
well as today, stamps carried large respect. I took a chance that I would never
see the Finnish Officials or my money again, but life is full of risks anyhow.
Loss of the money wouldn’t change my lifestyle anyway.
About a month passed and unexpectedly I
received an official looking envelope in which was my long awaited invitation
to Finland with a large official stamp. The
first step in my plan to go to Western Europe was then accomplished. The previous summer, I had already hosted a
student of mathematics from Uppsala, Lars Inge Hedberg. I was afraid that my application
for a passport stating a visit to a private person would end in denial. I also
knew that once I was denied a passport, I would be blacklisted for future
foreign travel scrutiny. Therefore the use of an official invitation from the Finnish
Union of Students as a justification for passport presented a better chance of a
positive outcome. I also correctly speculated that getting to Finland by train
I would have to travel via Sweden. Then, on that occasion I could stop in
Sweden and visit my exchange student contact, Lars.
On the Way to the “Nordic Haven”
With my Finnish invitation in hand I went to
Warsaw to contact Karol’s cousin, Janusz Pelc, who was the head of the Travel
Office of the Polish Union of Students. I
asked him for help in obtaining a passport as an official delegate of the Polish
Union of Students. As in previous travel
to the UK to pick potatoes on an English farm, Janusz was very helpful this
time as well. Soon I was on the train
and ferryboats via Berlin, Sasnitz to Stockholm, and then to Turku and Helsinki
in Finland. In Berlin I had a few hours’
wait changing trains at the port of Sasnitz.
I used that time to walk around eastern Berlin. I also approached the demarcation
line between the Soviet and U.S. occupied Zones and asked the Soviet guard if I
could enter the American Zone. The soldier smiled and invited me to cross the
border. This event took place a few months before erecting the Berlin Wall. On
my way back to Poland in the spring of 1961 crossing from East Berlin to West
Berlin was not so easy. The situation had dramatically changed. The next time I
could cross easily from East Berlin to West Berlin was a day before the Berlin
Wall collapsed. I was traveling by rental car from Poland to West Berlin in the
autumn of 1990 and I was surprised that the notoriously fickle East German
Security Guards waived me through without inspecting my car. The next day from
the comfort of my living room in Columbus, Ohio I watched on TV as crowds of
Berliners poured into West Berlin and chipped away concrete from the Berlin
Wall.
Traveling from Warsaw to Helsinki, Finland
took about two days by train. The main problem was how to sustain myself during
the trip since I was only allowed to exchange $5 worth of Polish zloty. I exhausted my currency on Coca Cola before I
reached Berlin. I took with me a large
loaf of bread, butter and some dry sausage—this was my nourishment for the
entire train ride until I met my sponsors in Helsinki. Once in Finland, my
sponsors provided me with coupons for the student cafeteria for my 30-day stay.
I also had two bottles of Polish Vodka,
considered the equivalent of foreign currency. My problem was how to find an
interested party willing to purchase vodka at a moment’s notice. When I arrived
in Stockholm I had to wait several hours for a connecting ferry to Turku. It
was a rainy autumn day at the harbor. I
found shelter in the Swedish Post Office across the street from the dock where the
ferry was mooring and made myself dinner. I sliced a piece of bread, covered it
with butter and chased it with water from the faucet in the Post Office
bathroom. It was delicious. Soon my ferry arrived and I was assigned a cabin
along with a German student also heading to Helsinki. In the moments before
departure, I noticed an attractive Finnish girl and I struck up a conversation.
The trip from Stockholm to Turku was overnight and the night was young so I
invited the young lady and German student to join me for a party hosted by my
two bottles of vodka. The Finnish girl admitted that she had never in her life
drunk vodka and was looking forward to this exciting, illegal experience. I
still had some bread left that could be served as hors d'oeuvres and the party
started. The German student and I drank
in moderation, savoring every gulp of warm vodka like a vintage wine. The Finnish
girl was eager to experience an exhilarating, drunken state of mind and consequently
drank as quickly as possible. All of a
sudden, to our terrified surprise, she slid under the table unconscious and our
party was over. We tried to revive her, but it took some time before she opened
her eyes again. It was the first time I had witnessed the devastating effect of
vodka on person unable or unaccustomed to metabolizing it. We carried her to
her cabin and it was a month later when I saw her again as I was leaving
Finland on my way to Uppsala.
In Helsinki
After arriving in Helsinki I called my
sponsors who provided me with coupons to the student cafeteria and a room, which
I shared with another German student, in the student dorm. I also insisted that the “High Office” of the
Finnish Union of Students provide me with another important document that would
allow me to enter any student dance in Helsinki free of charge. And so they
did. Each time I showed this important
looking document written in Finnish I was cordially invited to any student
activity without an entrance fee.
Attending student dances was my fool-proof plan to meet Finnish students
of the female persuasion. Because of my
religious orientation I do not dance with men, especially when dancing implies
mutual embracing.
At one such dance I met an Italian girl who
spoke English, apparently the daughter of an Italian consul in Helsinki. She
mentioned that the wife of the Italian ambassador in Finland was Polish and she
would like to meet me. Shortly thereafter I was invited to the ambassador’s
residence and met a very attractive Polish lady, named Tyszkiewicz. Apparently
she was of noble heritage from the well-known Polish-Lithuanian family of
Tyszkiewicz. I spent a few hours with her drinking Chianti and telling her about
life in Poland. As we exchanged goodbyes she told me that if I returned to
Helsinki after my planned visit to Uppsala, she would arrange a party for me
where I could meet some influential people of similar interests. Unfortunately I did not return to Helsinki
from Sweden and I missed her diplomatic party.
In the middle of my stay in Helsinki I
received a phone call from my friend Karol Pelc in Poland who informed me that
my professor and sponsor, Stefan Bincer had died. He told me that I should not
rush to return, because there was no job for me. Professor Bincer’s department,
where I had worked for the last few years was going to be merged with another.
Besides, I was not considered by the majority of faculty as having any academic
potential.
Having one month’s time on my hands, I tried
to visit different factories. At the local Polytechnic Institute I met Jari
Jauhianinen, Dean of the Department of Telecommunications. He invited me to his
home and assisted me in arranging still more visits to local industry. He also
told me that if I decided to return to Finland he would arrange for me a paid
practice with a large Helsinki manufacturer of electric cables, Finska Kabel
Fabriken. As with the diplomatic party promise by Countess Tyszkiewicz, I did
not take advantage of Professor Jauhianinen’s offer. Employment at the Institute of Physics in
Uppsala was more attractive and more along the line of my previous experiences.
At the end of September I decided to visit
Uppsala and take advantage of my invitation from my exchange partner Lars Inge
Hedberg, who was my guest the previous year in Poland. My way to Uppsala was
along the previously visited track, via Turku and Stockholm. In Turku I was invited to visit my female
acquaintance from the ferry boat a month earlier. Remembering her inability to handle her
vodka, we selected a different, non-alcoholic beverage on this encounter.
|
Monument for professor Stefan Bincer founded by Jan Czekajewski and
Eugeniusz Hajek in Wroclaw
|
Uppsala,
here I come!
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Uppsala. Old royal castle
|
|
Institute of Physics at
Uppsala University
|
Medical doctors, musicians and astronomers
were coming to Professor Tove with requests to design specialized equipment—then
he would pass the work on to me. In fact, his specialty was in solid state
electronics, designing transistors and solid state particle sensors—not in
instrumentation, my area of expertise. I
became very valuable to him in this regard.
Usually money for such equipment came from individual grants and
researchers were pressing for delivery in a short time, never longer than six
months and usually only three. Available funds were only $3,000-$10,000. Therefore, projects imposed double constraints,
both financially and in timing. When Professor Tove asked me how much I would
like to earn. I told him modestly that I only needed to pay for a room and
food. I did not come here to Sweden to get rich. He was impressed by my modesty
and provided me with a correspondingly meager monthly income of 600 Swedish
crowns, which allowed me to keep my standard of living on the border of
starvation. During my work at the Institute of Physics I developed, or
otherwise invented, a few instruments which later became the base for my future
company Uppsala Instruments and later my American company, Columbus Instruments.
For example, I developed equipment for monitoring and counting bats living in mountain
caves 20 kilometers outside Uppsala. Information about bats entering and leaving
the cave was provided to the Institute of Zoology via radio telemetry. It was the
first instrument which I described with Professor Tove, as a coauthor in the
world renowned magazine Electronics.
Next was an instrument known as a cardio-tachometer that measured the heart
rate and respiration rate of patients in intensive care units. This invention
was different from other similar instruments, because it featured a fast
response time in situations when the patient’s heart rate or respiration changed
suddenly. Still another instrument was the thermo dilution cardiac output computer
which measured blood flow through the heart of newborn infants and very small
animals. I also invented an instrument for automatic notation of music played
by flute or other single pipe instrument. This instrument was ordered by the Institute
of Musicology.
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Jan with his invention of radio
telemetry for counting bats in remote Swedish caves. (Uppsala, 1961)
|
Being suddenly homeless I went to the Student
Union and begged for a room in the student dormitory. I must say that Swedish
dormitories were luxurious by any standards. Each student had a room equipped
with a bed, a table with a lamp, two chairs and a kitchen shared with residents
in the adjoining sleeping room. The price was modest and even lower than my
previous private accommodations. An official governing the distribution of
rooms in the dormitories felt sorry for me as a “refugee” from a Communist
country and granted me a room in the area of Studentstaden close to the
Institute of Physics that was only a 15 minute commute on foot.
Social life in Uppsala in years 1960-1961
Since I didn’t speak Swedish, my social
circle was limited to a group of Polish researchers on different scholarships
working at the Institute of Physics or in other university institutions in
Uppsala. One was a professor—Wlodzimierz Zuk—from the University Maria
Curie-Sklodowska in Lublin, Poland. My other companions were Dr. Zbigniew
Grabowski from the Institute of Nuclear Research in Krakow, Dr. Julian
Aulaitner from the Institute of Physics of Warsaw University and lecturer in
Polish literature, Mr. Siudut from the Jagielonian University in Krakow. Once a
week foreign students and researchers would meet in the Foreigners’ Club where
they had a chance to intermingle with Swedish students of both genders
interested in meeting foreigners. In this club I also met Dr. Henryk Ryzko, a
researcher from Warsaw Polytechnic and specialist in the phenomena of high voltage.
Three people in this group impacted my future life. Professor W. Zuk offered me
a job at his institute in Lublin, Dr. H. Ryzko became my lifelong friend and
encouraged me later to emigrate from Sweden and Dr. Z. Grabowski engaged me in
the development of an instrument for measuring radiation in Aurora, which led
researchers in Alaska to sponsor my immigration to the United States.
Swedish winter blues
Winter in Uppsala is long and depressing. In
December the sun, if you are lucky, appears at the horizon for about 4 hours
and then a deep darkness engulfs the town for the remaining 20 hours of the day.
Uppsala in December has temperatures below freezing, but not always. Most of
the time temperature fluctuates between plus and minus 4° Celsius. When the temperature
is zero and the snow mixes with salt dispensed abundantly on the roads, the
snow turns into a slush which penetrates your shoes. One dark afternoon I was trudging
down the sidewalk covered in slush, solitude and darkness. I was walking toward
my apartment which was about 4 km away. Suddenly an elegant Mercedes
transporting a very attractive young blond woman appeared at the curb. At first
I had the impression that this woman felt sorry for such a lonely man, slowly
and sadly making his way through the dirty snow. She lowered the car window and asked me
something in Swedish. I responded in English. She hesitated for a moment and
then she pressed on the gas and in a few seconds she was gone splattering me
with mud. Apparently she had changed her mind. She did not offer me a lift. I
speculated at the reason she stopped in the first place. Was she asking for
directions or did she feel pity for the miserable figure I appeared to be on
this late dark afternoon? Suddenly I
felt humiliated, by my poverty, by my lack of language and in general, by my
miserably low social status. In spite of this feeling I held on to my inner
pride. I was sure that one day I would be equal to the girl in the Mercedes and
maybe I would even drive a similar or better car of my own. I knew that it would happen. It did. It has
been a long road to get here, but I never felt subservient to people with money
or “higher class.” I held on to my own
standards.
Dancing
in Uppsala
During my first year in Uppsala I suffered
from depression thanks to the gloomy winter and complete lack of Swedish
language. My inability to communicate
created a barrier for my social life. Fortunately, on the weekends, local
student Fraternities, called “Nations” were organizing dances. The label of “Nation”
comes from the origins of the fraternities, which gathered students coming from
the same provinces of Sweden, be it from Norland, Smaland or Uppland etc. The dances
were open to all students and the entrance fee was minimal. As my young social
life was always depending on dancing, I eagerly took advantage of such opportunities.
I was hoping that I could find some female to spend time with who could enrich
my lonely life. During one such evening
I was dancing with an attractive Swedish girl, who unfortunately did not speak
a word of English. Most likely, she was not a student at the university, but a
nurse from the local hospital. She came
to the dance with a girlfriend who also did not speak English, but was dancing
with a man, who was fluent in English. He offered to act as a translator.
It was obvious that my dancing partner was
interested in me, but could not verbalize her desires. About 1 a.m. the dance
ended and we all were going home. Then our ladies, after some conferencing,
asked us to join them for a “cup of tea” at their apartment close by. It became obvious that young ladies had more elaborate
plans for us than just tea. After we arrived at the girls’ apartment, I noticed
that “my” girl was saying more to the English-speaking friend than he was
translating to me. I asked him what they
were talking about and he told me that the young lady was asking him, if I was
“an intellectual” with a degree from a university or just a crude, uneducated
immigrant who came to Sweden for manual labor. She told him that she could
sleep with me if I was “an intellectual,” but never if I was a crude laborer.
In that moment I felt depressed that my intellectual potential was not clearly
visible to her while we were dancing. In spite of the fact that the lady was
very attractive, I excused myself under some pretense of having indigestion and
sulked back to my student dorm. This situation did not improve my spirits.
First return to Poland
My work at the Institute of Physics was
satisfactory. The pay was miserable, but sufficient in sustaining my existence
without hunger. My new accommodations in the student dormitory were very good
and slowly I was also building up a social life inclusive of both sexes. Meanwhile,
back in Poland I had left my first wife Elisabeth and a lover, Zofia. I imagined that Zofia would serve the future
function as my lifetime companion. I
must say that having such a duality of emotional arrangements troubled me and I
felt a strong degree of guilt toward Elisabeth. I was idealistic in nature and
these complexities in marital relations troubled me immensely. I knew that
within a few months I would be returning to Poland and I would have to face the
decision to become a monogamist or continue on with Zofia.
While I was weighing the injustice I did to
Elisabeth, She already had a lover. Even more, her lover was a former officer in
the dreaded Secret Police, UB. I had to wait 50 years to receive this
information about Elisabeth’s liaisons during my absence from Poland. It
happened by accident when one of the journalists I met in Warsaw, offered me
his assistance in searching the archives of the Polish Secret Police and
Intelligence available for all interested parties from the Institute of
National Remembrance. Apparently all of these
reports were microfilmed and never destroyed after Communists were ousted from
power in 1989. Unfortunately I learned
these facts 50 years too late, all the while suffering from the guilt of my
infidelity.
From the very beginning of my trip to Finland
and later during my stay in Sweden, I never attempted to emigrate from Poland
for good. I was thinking that I should return to Poland and contribute to the development
of the country even if I didn’t agree with the Communist system I considered to
be stupid and wasteful. At the time I did not fully comprehend the severity of
the atrocities committed by Communists in Poland during the first years after
the war. After the death of Stalin I had a hope that the system would gradually
became more liberal and more enlightened—that “intellectuals” would take charge
of the country. It took me three visits to the West and two returns to
Communist Poland to realize that if I stayed there any longer I would waste my
life on meaningless pursuits. With my
loose tongue and sharp criticism I would have ended up in prison.
During my first stay in Uppsala I arranged a visit
to a Swedish company—Elema-Schronander—located in Solna outside Stockholm. While
touring the laboratories of this company they demonstrated their work on a
cardio tachometer, a device used in intensive care units to monitor the
frequency of heart rate and respiration. After my return to Uppsala I was thinking that
I could improve on such a device, which in its original design was responding
slowly to changes in heart rate. In a short time I built a better prototype and
went back to Elema with a proposition to sell my new design. As usual, the
“native” engineers were none too happy with somebody from the outside coming to
them with new ideas and they consequently rejected my offer. Luckily, I met their
senior researcher, inventor of the first ink jet printer, Dr. Elmquist. He
supported me and overruled the local resistance. Elema offered to purchase my
invention. I was afraid that the Polish “authorities” would not be happy with
Polish citizens selling any intellectual property effectively bypassing state
channels. Therefore I enlisted Professor Per Arno Tove to complete this
transaction and we split the royalty. Later, this arrangement proved to be
useful when I was accused, after my return to Poland, of committing foreign
transactions without informing the Polish Government.
In Stockholm I also visited a small company—Ljungberg
Company—that manufactured blood cell counters, marketed under the trade name
Celluloscope. Because my return to Poland was scheduled at the end of May, I
suggested that they should exhibit this instrument at the Poznan Intentional
Fair in June and I would take care of the booth at the exhibit. I didn’t ask for
any money for my services or even commission on future sales. I considered it an investment in my future. At the end of May to the surprise of Professor
Tove, I decided to return to Poland to divorce Elisabeth and marry my beloved
Zofia.
Professor Tove was apparently impressed with
my engineering qualities, because he offered me an “in blanco” invitation to
return to his department at my convenience. I asked that this invitation not be dated, so
that I could write in the date after I was sure of the date of my return to
Sweden. Planning ahead, I left part of my small savings with my friend Dr.
Henryk Ryzko for safe-keeping. Henryk decided to stay in Sweden and later
married a Swedish woman—Asa Ivarson, a surgeon at the Uppsala Hospital. He also
recommended me to his brother Professor Stanislaw Ryzko, a famous professor of
electronics at Warsaw Polytechnic. After my return from Sweden I started the formalities
of the doctoral procedure under his tutelage.
My efforts never resulted in a degree because I didn’t return to Poland
to complete it after my last stay in Sweden in 1965-68. Instead I was granted a Swedish doctorate
(PhD) by Professor Tove for total contributions to the development of
scientific electronic instrumentation, before my immigration to the U.S. in the
spring of
1968.
|
Jan’s invention-Cardio
Tachometer (Production model).
|
Recommendations for Karol Pelc
Before I left Uppsala, I approached Professor
Tove with a suggestion that he invite in my place my friend Karol Pelc. During
our studies in Wroclaw Karol and I became practically inseparable and to some
extent, complementary in our abilities and characters. I was troubled with a rich
imagination and impatience. Karol was highly organized and able to see projects
through to completion. I was driven by
ideas; Karol helped me to put these ideas into practice. He was always a much better student then I
was, and as I remember he was even nominated one year as the “Most accomplished
student in the Department of Electronics.”
We got our first jobs together in Professor Bincer’s department and made
our first money repairing moisture meters for grain.
Therefore, in continuation of this
cooperation I suggested to Professor Tove that he hire Karol in my
absence. I brought with me an official
invitation for Karol from the Institute of Physics which he used to obtain a passport
to come to Uppsala in September 1961.
Karol worked in Uppsala until March 1962 and
then returned to Poland. If I am not mistaken, the Polish Passport Office
refused to issue passports to his wife and son so that they could join him in
Uppsala. I authorized that the money I had
entrusted to Dr. Ryzko be given to Karol when he arrived and we jointly
purchased another car. This time it was a Simca Etoile in pretty bad shape,
rusty throughout just like my previous car, a Renault Dauphine. But it was drivable and Karol let me drive it,
probably because most of the cost of the car was covered by my savings. Using
this car I obtained a driver’s license while still working at the Institute of
Physics in Lublin. Soon we sold this
car, after the rust spots became painfully obvious, eating through the paint on
the fenders. To be able to sell the car
we had to repaint it to hide the alarming indications of metal decay. As I
remember, we sold this car to a dentist who was ecstatic with his new
investment. To our delight, he paid a
princely sum for the car.
My car, the
Renault Dauphine
Before my return to Poland in 1961 I
purchased a small car, as most Poles returning from a foreign scholarship did.
It was one of the worst transactions of my life. In Poland at that time cars
manufactured in France were quite popular. Among the most popular was the Simca
made by a subsidiary of General Motors and the Dauphine, made by Renault.
Nowadays if one searches on the Internet under the name Renault Dauphine he
will find it on the list of the 10 worst cars ever made. That fact was not apparent to me when I
purchased my Dauphine. I was brainwashed
by the mirage of French automobile technology. Because I had little money, my
only option was to purchase a used car. After looking at the ads in the local
paper Uppsala Tidnigen I found one, a
Renault Dauphine for 2000 Swedish crowns. I purchased it hastily not realizing
that its thin body was completely infected with rust. Otherwise, it ran well
and had a great fuel economy; but that was due to the very small, weak motor.
|
Her name was Brigita but car
was Renault Dauphine, before accident
|
The next month I packed my meager
belongings and left for Poland by train. I went straight to Poznan, where
according to the agreement with Swedish businessman, Ljungberg, I was to
exhibit his Celluloscope blood cell counter at the International Industrial
Fair in Poznan. In the meantime my
Dauphine had arrived in the sea port of Gdynia and was waiting at customs to be
released to me. Not being able to leave my booth at the Exhibition, I met a
friend from the Polytechnic Institute, who had a Polish driver’s license to
pick up my car and drive it to my parents’ home in Czestochowa, a few hundred
miles away from Gdynia. Unfortunately, when my friend was close to Czestochowa,
about 40 miles away, my car somehow felt apart, successfully completing several
end-over-end rolls and landing in a ditch, closely resembling a pancake. People who witnessed this accident were sure
that whoever was in this car could not be alive.
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Renault Dauphine after
accident
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How I became
the subject of a female duel
When describing the situation with my unfortunate
car, the Renault Dauphine, I should mention another incident, which took place
on the property of the International Fair in Poznan. Shortly after my arrival
in Poland I asked my lover, and later second wife, Zofia to join me in Poznan.
I was not aware that someone had seen me in Poznan, and informed my wife Elisabeth
of my presence in Poland. Suddenly, one day Elisabeth arrived at the Fair and
confronted Zofia, insisting that as my lawful wife, twice married—in church and
in civil ceremony—I belonged exclusively to her.
Zofia had her own reasons for not giving me
up. Both ladies were ready to damage each other by way of their umbrellas.
Because a crowd of people started gathering around, Elisabeth gave up and left
the fair. For 50 years I felt guilty for abandoning Elisabeth; but, recently
received copies of documents from the Polish Archives of Secret Police which
made it clear that Elisabeth was not worth my worry. She not only had a Secret Police
lover, but also offered help to the Secret Police to deliver any information
which they could use against me.
June 1961:
Selling Swedish Celluloscopes at the Poznan Fair
After arriving in Poland in June 1961 I sped
to Poznan to set up my exhibit for Ljungberg AB. At the beginning of the fair I
had no trouble from the exhibition management due to the fact that they tried
to monopolize the staffing of exhibits by Polish helpers. I assume many of them
were informers of the Secret Police who supposedly had to report what foreign
businessmen were saying and how they behaved. I entered the exhibition area
showing my Polish passport and nobody asked me any questions. Then one day I
was stopped at the entrance and my passport was confiscated. I was told to
report to the office of Mr. Engelman, who apparently, at that time was the head
of the State Consortium of Medical Equipment Manufacturers. They questioned me as
to how I got this job with Ljungberg and how much I was being paid. I explained
my situation and they assured me that they did not represent the Secret Police,
which of course I did not take seriously. They gave me back my passport and I
was allowed to continue my sales efforts demonstrating Celluloscope equipment
to Polish medical doctors. Surprisingly, some of them came with ready-to-sign
purchase contracts, which I was afraid to sign with my name, because it would
imply to Polish authorities that I had more authority then I actually did. In such situations I went to a Swede
representing Elema-Schronander AB (later purchased by German Siemens) to which
I sold my design of cardio tachometers. His name was Guler. He agreed to sign
the sales contracts instead of me.
Fifty years later, I learned that my work at
the Poznan International Fair was of interest to the Polish Secret Service.
They inquired about my function there and in the copies of reports which I
received from Polish archives; they described my function at the International
fair as a “translator” and my attitude in relation to the foreign principals as
“subservient.” Apparently they were unable to invent anything more damaging to
soil my records in their secret files.
Summer of 1961
in Wroclaw, Poland
After completing my duties as an exhibitor at
the Poznan International Fair I returned to Wroclaw, the place where I had the most
friends and most memories. I could not return to Elisabeth even though she was
still living in my efficiency apartment so I asked my friend Romuald Odulinski
(Reniek), a colleague from high school in Czestochowa, if I could stay with him
at his room in the factory where he worked. Reniek was studying mechanical engineering at
Czestochowa Polytechnic, but after graduation was sent to Wroclaw as part of a “work
assignment program.” Under this program
factories submitted requests to universities for engineers and universities
assigned graduates to the factories. This
system was overrun with corruption, as influential people were sent to better
factories and larger towns, while graduates without connections were sent to
mediocre factories. Reniek’s fate was a mediocre factory.
He was sent to a factory to manufacture
equipment for the food industry. Luckily, that factory was located in the large,
lovely city of Wroclaw, where I was living at the same time. I introduced
Reniek into my circle of friends and he was not lonely in his misery. The room
he was allotted was genuinely miserable. In was located on the property of the
factory operating in a former brewery that was bombed-out during the war. His room was just above the public lavatory. During the summers a terrible stench of urine
engulfed his entire room. His room had
no bathroom, but had a sink with cold water. In this sink Reniek was washing
his socks and underwear. Always unpretentious and friendly, Reniek readily
agreed to share his room with me and procured for this purpose a second metal
bed. He was aware of my predicament with Elisabeth.
One day Reniek came to me, embarrassed,
asking for help. Apparently a Secret Police officer who interrogated him after
his return from England, where we had been picking potatoes, asked him this
time about me. According to Reniek the Polish secret “intelligence” agent was
confused and worried why had I returned to Poland from rich and prosperous
Sweden where I had a good job? Why had I returned to Poland with no strong
family or community ties as indicated by my troubled marriage with Ella? Maybe
Reniek would enlighten them in this regard.
They asked Reniek to write a statement about
my psyche in which he should describe what I liked and what I disliked and my
political beliefs. Reniek came to me for
help. I could not refuse my friend and over the course of a few hours I had
written a pretty elaborate document about my psyche. I had a little bit of
trouble identifying negative elements of my character which were necessary to
make the narrative believable. By negative elements, I mean in the sense that they
were critical of the Communist system. My negatives couldn’t be too negative,
qualifying me as an “enemy of the people,” just mildly negative.
I thought it best to embellish my tendency to
tell political jokes. I wrote that in my
heart I was a Socialist, but my rebellious character was critical of sluggish
bureaucracy. I told jokes critical of the “system” because I would like to improve
it, not change it. Thanks to my straight
forward attitude I made many enemies, and my jokes brought me many troubles.
Nevertheless, I was a Polish patriot who believed in building a better future
in Poland, not in Sweden or anywhere else.
Reniek rewrote my scribbling in his own
character and delivered it to his “intelligence contact.” From that moment I was sure that I was under
constant observation. Before then I had
only suspected it. In a few days Reniek was approached by his “contact” and
praised for his “assessment of suspect Czekajewski.” He was told that it was the best report they
had ever received in their office. “Congratulations! Any time you need our help
in obtaining a passport please give us a call and we will help you eagerly,”
they told Reniek. They did not suspect
that in few years Reniek would get on his Czechoslovakian Jawa 350 motorcycle
and drive to France, never to return.
After writing my own denunciation for the
Secret Police I was waiting nervously for them to approach me directly. I
didn’t have to wait long. One rainy day, a young man in a long dirty trench
coat, dressed in such a way apparently for camouflage, approached me at the
tram stop in front of Reniek’s factory. He informed me that an officer of
Polish counter-intelligence wished to meet me at such and such an hour in a café
in downtown Wroclaw. Obviously I agreed with reluctant enthusiasm. At first I
met him in the café, but then my interrogator suggested that we go to a more
appropriate place, a room in the most luxurious hotel in town, “Monopol.” Apparently, he was trying to impress me with
the splendor available to the Secret Police. The room was on the
|
Hotel “Monopol” where I was
interrogated in 1961; in picture, Reniek Odulinski and Jan Czekajewski
(2010).
|
He collected the room key,
attached to a large wooden pear, which made it impossible for a guest to stuff the
key in his pocket. It was a preventive measure to keep hotel guests from
walking away with keys. I was informed that this room had special significance,
because in the past, when Wroclaw was a German city (Breslau) whenever Hitler
came to town he stayed in this room. Occasionally, he greeted the citizens of
Breslau from the balcony of this room. I made a sincere effort to show my
appreciation for the splendor extended to me by the Secret Police of my Polish
People’s Republic. Then the interrogation started.
I was asked if I was ever approached for recruitment by foreign intelligence
agencies. Since I never had been approached by foreign intelligence agencies, I
was actually able to answer truthfully. Then he asked what kind of interesting
projects I was working on during my work at the Institute of Physics which was
known for research in the field of nuclear physics.
I told him that I was counting the bats
flying in and out of a cave located 20 km from Uppsala. I even had with me a copy
of my publication in the American Electronics
magazine describing my invention. Unfortunately the secret agent was not
impressed with counting bats, but I insisted on telling him how interesting
these animals were, using ultrasonic Radar (Sonar) for flying in the dark. Next
he asked me who I met in Sweden. I told him that I met several Swedish girls
and I must report that Swedish girls do not measure up to our Polish Socialist
maidens. Their appearance, blue eyes and blond hair can be deceptive. They are
users. They treat us men as objects to satisfy their animalistic sexual urges.
They do not invest in long-term relations. Their cold-blooded sex could not
match the tenderness and sensibility of our Polish girls. In the middle of my tirade,
my officer interrupted me brutally by saying that, “we know all about Swedish
girls.” He wanted to know specifically
with whom I made acquaintance in the Polish community. He was mostly interested
in the behavior of Polish scientists who went to Sweden on temporary scientific
assignments and scholarships.
“What interests us,” he said, “is if they
defame “our country” and if they are worthy to be sent abroad again. You may
know that some people go to the foreign countries and behave similarly to
despicable birds, who defecate in their own nests.” I told him that I kept mostly close, as they would
allow me, to Swedish girls and I did not remember any Polish scientists who
defecated in their own nests. I remembered some scientists who puked after
getting drunk, but they didn’t defecate. I kept this information, as immaterial
as it may have been, to myself and did not share it with my interrogator.
I did not know at the time, that this
conversation would be described in detail by my interrogator and filed in a secret
file under my code name by the Polish Homeland Security. In the same file I
would find an exact copy of the elaborate assessment which I composed about
myself and which was delivered by Reniek to the Secret Police in 1961. It was
this information and much more spanning 200 pages of reports I received under the
freedom of information act from the Polish Institute of Remembrance which keeps
archives of Communist Secret Police. Fifty years later I learned that
instructions went out to different departments of security services to tap my
telephone, which I did not have, to read and copy all my local and foreign
correspondence and to burglarize Reniek’s
room with instructions to copy my notes and addresses.
|
Hotel “Monopol: Room 101
where Jan was interrogated
|
Reniek penetrates trade school secrets
With fifty years delay Reniek, now an esteemed
breeder of colorful parrots in Montreal, Canada revealed the true reason for
his influence with the inner workings of the Communist secret counter-intelligence
in the 1960’s and later. Reniek, after
losing his internship at the factory, got a better job as a machine maintenance
engineer at the trade school for electricians and mechanics. This secret was
well known to his contact officer who one day approached Reniek with a proposal
to be kept secret even from the Secret Police. The officer’s nephew was
aspiring to become an electrician, but nature did not provide him with
sufficient smarts to pass the entry examination, which was conducted each year
at the beginning of the school year. The officer suggested that Reniek
penetrate secret files of the school and obtain the questions which all
students had to answer during the exam.
Reniek who was always very popular with women
asked the secretary of the school principal to steal the secret questions from
the principal’s safe, which she did. Information about what kind of goods (or services) Reniek provided in
exchange is still classified, because Reniek is now a happily married man. Reniek copied the questions and dutifully
delivered them to the “contact officer” who in turn passed them to his nephew. Apparently
a group of scholars on the payroll of the Secret Police worked up the answers
to these questions and everybody was confident that the nephew would pass the
exam, be accepted to the school and after four years become a proud
electrician. Unfortunately, to the disappointment of all involved in this
secret operation, students also had to pass an oral examination, where the questions
were not strictly defined. The nephew failed the oral examination. Reniek was
worried that the nephew’s failure would put an end to his influence in the
Secret Police inner circles. Apparently
however, the Secret Police had other methods of convincing the school admission
committee, bypassing their examinations and the nephew was admitted. Because
Reniek soon defected to the west, he never knew if the nephew graduated from
this school or if his electrical talents were utilized.
1961 -1962: Lublin, Poland
I had never been to Lublin before. I was
offered a job there by Professor W. Zuk who spent a year at the Uppsala
Institute of Physics the same time I was there. He was there on a scholarship
from the International Atomic Agency in Vienna, Austria. Lublin is located in the
eastern part of Poland which was known as Poland B. It was less industrialized
and less developed than the western part of the country. The University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska
where I was supposed to work was named after the famous Polish physicist who
discovered Radium and Polonium. She was the only physicist to receive the Nobel
Prize twice, once for physics and then for chemistry. Professor Zuk told me
that if I planned to return to Poland, he could offer me a position at the
Institute of Physics where he was a chairman. After returning to Poland in June
1961 and completing my function as an exhibitor for the Swedish company
Ljugnberg Inc. at the Poznan International Fair I started to look for a job. Any
possibility of returning to my position at the Wroclaw Polytechnic was gone,
because the only person who saw any potential in me, Professor Stefan Bincer,
had died a year earlier. Other members of faculty considered me a nuisance and
a joker, undeserving of any attention. Employment at Professor Zuk’s institute looked like my best
option.
|
Professor W. Zuk of the
Institute of Physics of University of Marie Curie-Sklodowska, Poland
|
He was not aware that “his” bed no longer
existed and that I was sleeping with Zofia on one narrow bed which under no
conditions could accommodate a third person. I tried to explain to the lecturer
the precarious situation he put me in and gently suggested that he walk back to
the railway station where he could doze off until morning classes. This poor
individual facing my steel determination gave up and dragged himself to the
railway station for well-deserved rest and recreation. This incident is a classic illustration of the
conditions we faced in Poland 15 years after the war, building a Socialist
paradise and educating new generations of engineers, doctors and agronomists.
Soon after Professor Zuk returned to Lublin
from Sweden I was assigned a desk in the room of Dr. Mieczylaw Subotowicz,
physicist and armchair astronaut. Dr. Subotowicz was a renaissance man, versed
in advanced mathematics, and experimental physics with an avid interest in
space travel. I would say that aeronautics was his life passion. He even wrote
a voluminous book on this subject and was considered in Poland as one of the
experts in this field. He was frequently asked to contribute articles on space
travel to popular magazines and spoke on the subject on television. Dr.
Subotowicz was eager to improve his English and therefore we made a pact that
while in his office we would converse in English only. Dr. Subotowicz often traveled to the U.S.S.R.
and the U.S. for scientific conferences on the subject of space travel. Many
years later in the 1970’s he even visited me in Columbus, Ohio on the occasion
of one of his conferences taking part in U.S.
Soon I started to think how I could improve
my financial lot and engage in similar activity as I had at Wroclaw
Polytechnic, before my first visit to Sweden.
At that time the government was trying to help the researchers at the
Polytechnic Universities by allowing them consulting work for industry. Such
work had to be channeled by special institutions called “supporting enterprises.”
The researchers were allowed a specific number of hours to work on consulting
projects for industry at a specific, government-dictated hourly rate. “Consulting” also encompassed construction of
experimental devices and even small scale production.
In Wroclaw we were involved in building noise
meters, moisture meters for grain and even more complex small TV repeater stations
for small towns located large distances away from large TV transmitters. In Lublin I had to convince the president and
treasurer of university of the need for such economical enterprises, from which
the university would be able to benefit, charging 50% overhead for use of
facilities and administrative services.
Soon my enterprise was functioning in full
swing and I received my first order to build high voltage, precisely regulated,
power supplies for medical testing of high-voltage (5000V) electrophoresis. As
I remember, my innovative design utilized rather primitive, Polish-made low-voltage
transistors. I also remember that my life very nearly came to an abrupt end in
the middle of construction. One night I
tried to move this rather heavy contraption after a long day’s work. Exhausted and drowsy, I touched the output
terminals with my bare palm and was the unsuspecting recipient of 5,000 volts
of electricity. I lost consciousness for
a while after standing still, paralyzed while an electric arc burned a hole in
my right hand palm. I didn’t even realize that I was screaming from pain. I was
revived back to consciousness when the secretary working that night on the
second floor burst into my room terrified by my screams. I was lucky that the
electric current was a closed loop through only one palm. The situation would
have certainly ended in my death if the current had traveled from my right hand
to my left hand through my heart.
Around the same time in the early summer of
1962 my friend Karol Pelc, whom I had recommended to Professor Tove in Uppsala
as my replacement, came back to Poland because his wife was not allowed to
travel with him to Sweden. He brought with him another rusty French car, this
time a Simca Etoile. I had 50% or more ownership in this car since Karol used
some of the money I left in Sweden to purchase this vehicle. Karol let me use
this car until we sold it and divided the proceeds.
Despite my near death experience, the university
recognized my talent and agreed to place me on a waiting list for a two bedroom
apartment in the University Housing Cooperative. Having my own apartment would
establish me as a trustworthy Polish citizen according to Secret Police
standards. Apartments were a privilege in Poland at that time and the people
occupying them rarely escaped to the west even if they had such opportunity.
Spring 1962: Second urge to visit Sweden
In the spring of 1962 I experienced a strong
urge to return to Sweden to replenish my dollar resources, which allowed me to
live at a higher than average standard of living in Poland. I approached Professor Zuk and asked what his
opinion was on such an endeavor. I
indicated that I had just received an invitation to go back to the Institute of
Physics for one year for continued practice and enrichment of my experience in
electronics. I also mentioned that while in Sweden I would pass along my very best
recommendations for the Lublin Institute of Physics and open the door for a
broader exchange of scientists. Professor Zuk obviously believed in my Swedish
influence and asked what he could do to help. I told him that my travel had to
be sponsored by the university and a passport this time should be issued by the
Ministry of Higher Education. Applying
privately to the Passport Office was out of the question and surely I would be
denied the passport. An individual was allowed to travel on a private passport
to his/her uncle or aunt, but not to a university. Professor Zuk knew all the
bureaucratic tricks needed to make my travel possible. First of all, in a
Socialist system, citizens are owned by the state. The state has to send citizens
wherever they are needed and recall them once their tasks are accomplished. The
country was guided by a general Five Year Plan, and it would be best if my
travel somehow played a small part in this grandiose plan. Professor Zuk wrote to the Ministry of Higher
Education that my travels were part of the Five Year Plan of Research which
involved research on the angular correlation of nuclear particles. I did not
have any experience in such research, but Professor Zuk asked me privately to
look over how the equipment for measuring correlations was built in Uppsala. The
letter with angular correlation justification went then to the president of the
university, Professor Seigler with whom Professor Zuk was good friends. After
attaching my invitation from Professor Tove into which I typed the most recent
date, all documents were sent to the Ministry of Higher Education in Warsaw for
final approval and issuance of a passport.
Now all I had to do was wait for a positive
reply from the Ministry, receive a passport in Warsaw and jump on the train to
Sweden to start my work at Uppsala Institute of Physics at the beginning of the
academic year 1962-1963. So I waited, month after month and late in August I
became perturbed by the silence from the Ministry.
One rainy day something happened that changed
my plans. As I was leaving my guest room for the Institute and just a few steps
from the door I noticed a soldier with a large envelope approaching the same
door. I stopped behind the corner to hear what he had to say. After knocking on
the door my girlfriend Zofia appeared. The soldier told her that he had a letter from
the Polish Army which he had to deliver personally to Mr. Czekajewski. Zofia
realized that it was not an innocent visit but that the army intended to draft
me. Zofia told the soldier that she
would not take the letter to Czekajewski because she didn’t talk to the son of
a bitch anymore. She said that she knew that he lived in the next room, but she
never talked to him. If the Polish Army had business with Mr. Czekajewski, then
they needed to visit him in the evening. In the meantime he was probably at
work at the Institute. After this exchange the soldier left and announced that
he would return later. I immediately returned to my room and started conferring
with Zofia what to do. I was suspecting that calling me to the army was a plot
to deny me a foreign passport. Even if it was just an unfortunate coincidence,
I would be drafted to the army. I would
have to say goodbye to my plans to travel to Sweden.
We decided to pack up and immediately leave
on the next train to Warsaw where I could wait for my passport issued by the
Ministry of Higher Education. When we arrived at the railway station
Warsaw-East one of our three suitcases, with all of my possessions was stolen
in the crowd of people rushing out of the train—this was a great way to start
our flight out of Poland. We hoped it
was not a sign of things to come. As
usual, we boarded at Uncle Krauze’s villa on Olimpijska Street and just like every
other morning; I made my way to the Ministry of Higher Education to inquire of the
“Foreign Travel Department” if they had heard anything about my passport. I
assumed that my papers were sent to the Passport Office which was dragging its
feet.
Warsaw 1962: Exchange value of a 4-color ballpoint pen
After arriving in Warsaw and multiple visits
to the Ministry of Higher Education at Miodowa Street I was still in quandary as
to when I would obtain my passport. After 10 days from the moment I escaped the
clutches of the Polish Peoples’ Army, I was worried that they would launch a
search for me given my disappearance. I even called my friend, Dr. Mieczyslaw
Suborowicz, with whom I shared a room at the Institute to ask if he had heard
about any new developments regarding my person. I also asked him to tell Professor
Zuk, that I was OK in Warsaw, waiting for my passport. During our phone
conversation Subotowicz told me that I should return to Lublin, as the Polish
Army was inquiring about me at the Institute and even posted a soldier at the
building entrance to take me to the drafting office once I returned to the
Institute. Observing all elements of conspiracy I told Subotowicz nothing that
could be of use to the Polish Army for my “capture.”
After our conversation my anxiety increased
and I understood that I could not hide in Warsaw indefinitely. One day while
walking back and forth on the red carpet covering the long hall in the Ministry
of Higher Education I noticed a familiar face. It was a face of Mr. Soszynski,
formerly of the Polish Student Association Foreign Travel Office. In 1958 I was able to travel to England to
pick up potatoes thanks in large part to his help. To some extent, Mr. Soszynski was indebted to
me, because my friends and I co-opted his girlfriend to our group. To this day
I am not sure if she returned back to Communist Poland or if her travel to
England to pick up potatoes was a ploy to escape.
Soszynski asked me what I was doing at the
Ministry. I told him about my desperation of waiting for my passport, without
mentioning the troubles I had with the Polish Peoples’ Army. He offered to
investigate the matter as he himself now worked for the Foreign Travel
Department of the Ministry. He asked me to wait a few minutes and he disappeared
to check the files. After a short time he returned with bad news, that I would
never travel abroad through the Ministry of Higher Education.
The Deputy Minister had written personally on
my file: “Reject because invitation is personal.” Minister Krasowska, an old Communist
apparatchik, knew better who should travel to Sweden and any decision about
selecting proper scientists should be left for her ministry. The Swedes should
not impose on Poland their will. I was devastated. I nearly cried. All my
machinations in Lublin now went to waste. Soszynski seeing my desperation told
me that he could find some possibility of resolving my situation to my benefit,
basically reversing Minister Krasowska’s ruling. He told me that he was the one
to write an overview on each file for a special foreign travel commission meeting
every two weeks. They approved or disapproved candidates for travel based on
his conspectus. Minister Krasowska sometimes did not attend this boring meeting
as she may have more important Communist Party assignments. Even if she was
there, she would not remember this specific case of Mr. Czekajewski. Soszynski
offered to rewrite the brief, omit my name from the description of the invitation,
and resubmit it for committee consideration which would take place in one week.
I asked him what kind of honorarium he expected for such monumental help. I was
ready to give him all the money I had. Instead Mr. Soszynski asked me for a very
modest service. “You know my friend, when you find yourself in Sweden then you
can purchase for me a cartridge (an insert) for a four-color ballpoint pen. I
got such a pen last year as a present. With this pen I mark the importance of
documents in different colors. It can write in black, blue, green and red. Unfortunately
the ink in the cartridge colors has all been used. What is most troubling is
that I am not able to use the color red—it hampers my work at the Ministry.
Could you bring back, or send to me by mail such a cartridge?”
I was ready to send him a whole truck load of
four-color pens. So as not to arouse
suspicion that it could be a bribe, I agreed to send him a few four-color
cartridges, each valued at less than a dollar. After I arrived in Sweden I kept
my promise and sent Soszynski 10 color cartridges, so his ministerial work
could prosper and he could advance in his ranks. Maybe in due time, before the
fall of Communism, he advanced to be deputy minister himself. Who knows? After
my last meeting I never saw Mr. Soszynski again. Maybe he still is living in Warsaw
as a ministerial retiree.
|
Ministry of Higher Education
in Warsaw Poland
|
My passport and sexual potency of comrade Wycech
While scheming to obtain a passport to Sweden
I visited my childhood friend Witek Paluchowski, whose father was a friend of
my father’s at the telephone company in Czestochowa before the war. After the
war Witeks’s father moved to Warsaw to accept an important position in the
Central Planning Committee headed by notable Communist, Hilary Minc who was responsible
for the whole industrial investment in Poland.
While visiting Witek, who at the time lived with his wife and father in
the Mokotow suburb of Warsaw, I commiserated about the troubles I was having
with my passport. Witek’s wife mentioned that she may be able to help since she
worked for the Central Committee of the United Peasant Party, (ZSL). In fact she worked closely with a fellow who
was the right hand to the Speaker of Parliament, Comrade Wycech. The United
Peasant Party was established together with another party SD, (Democratic
Alliance) to make an impression on naive westerners, that in Poland we had a
multiparty system. In fact, all so called “parties” were subservient to the Communist
party PZPR (United Polish Workers’ Party).
To make the scheme more believable the Communist
party allocated some less important functions and positions to the subservient.
In the case of the Peasant Party they were allowed to appoint the Speaker of
Parliament, a position of an ambassador in some other Communist countries or
even a Consul in Moscow itself. One of the positions allotted to the Peasant
Party was Speaker of The Parliament, who happened to be Mr. Wycech. The risk of having named Wycech as Speaker of
Parliament was minimal, because Parliament itself had no meaning and was always
voting according to Communist party instructions. As my passport saga was
developing, Comrade Wycech was out of Warsaw, in Switzerland actually. I was
told in secrecy, that Mr. Wycech went there for hormonal therapy to receive
injections of extract from bull testicles to invigorate his masculinity. I am
not sure if this was true as I did not stay in Poland long enough to ask the young
ladies working in his office. When Comrade Wycech was out of town all business
was in the hands of Mr. Kaminski to whom I was introduced the next day thanks
to Witek’s wife.
Mr. Kaminski was a friendly individual who
was flattered by the fact that the young researcher asked him for help in such
“minor” case as a passport to Sweden. He took me to the office of the Speaker
of Parliament and dialed some number on a special w-cz (high frequency) line
which was impossible to bug and which only a handful of top government
officials were authorized to use. On the other end of the w-cz wire was the head
of the Passport Office who happened to be a friend of Mr. Kaminski. As I could
deduct from the conversation, Mr. Kaminski presented my travel to Sweden as an
important issue to the United Peasant Party and would appreciate any help the
Passport Office could offer to accelerate my passport application which was sent
to them by the Ministry of Higher Education. The person in the Passport Office
asked Mr. Kaminski to wait for a few minutes so they could check to make sure
they didn’t have any “secret” objections to my travels.
When he came back on the line, he said
everything was OK and that my passport would be sent to the Ministry of Higher
Education the next day. I was ecstatic and asked Mr. Kaminski for another
favor. I mentioned that I had a girlfriend, Zofia Krolikowska, who was
finishing her medical studies in Lodz. I asked if it would be possible for her
to join me in Sweden and receive some post graduate training at Uppsala University
Medical Center. I assured him that I
would arrange an official invitation from Uppsala Hospital and thereby costing
the Polish government nothing. I secured
Mr. Kaminski’s help in her case as well.
As it was customary in Poland Mr. Kaminski’s
help needed to be “discussed with our bellies at the bar,” in other words, our
new friendship had to be celebrated with copious amounts of vodka. I invited
Mr. Kaminski to the best Warsaw restaurant of his choice, but he refused. His
motivation was simple and understandable. All high class restaurants in the
city were under Secret Police surveillance and in the most expensive, like the one
in Hotel Monopol on Karowa Street; customers’ tables were bugged with installed
microphones. Mr. Kaminski was an important person, but when he drank he sometimes
expressed opinions in conflict with the prevailing party line. He would prefer a
more private arrangement. It came to my mind to invite him to the villa of
Zofia’s uncle, Zygmunt Krauze where we could have a lavish party in complete
privacy. His wife, also named Zofia was also cordially invited. To this
alternative Mr. Kaminski readily agreed.
Misters K
& K: Ideological confrontation
Mr. Zygmunt Krauze was the host of the
drinking party to which I invited Mr. Kaminski and his wife, named similarly as
my girlfriend, Zofia. Mr. Krauze was a
wealthy man in Socialist Poland. Interestingly, as he admitted, he never
finished high school, and according to some of his own stories, he was kicked
out of 6th grade for selling vodka and cigarettes. I wonder to whom he was selling vodka—probably
not his school colleagues because they would not have had any money. Today he
would be classified a drug dealer, but in underdeveloped Poland, the only drugs
available were cigarettes and vodka. At the time I met him he was living in an
elegant suburb of Warsaw, called Mokotow on Olimpijska Street, number 39. The villa where he lived was built just before
the Second World War and interestingly it had a three story subterranean
basement. I imagine that the original owner anticipated the war, and the subterranean
structure was nothing more than a bomb shelter. Zygmunt Krauze purchased his
villa with the money he had made growing red carnations.
He admitted that he didn’t know much about
anything, but he knew how to find people who knew something when he needed
them. Apparently, he found somebody who knew how to grow beautiful, fragrant
and long-lasting carnations. He exported those carnations to the Soviet Union,
as none of the Soviet agricultural cooperatives, known as Kolkhoz, could match
Krauze’s flowering products.
I should point out the importance of red
carnations for Soviet politics. The red color symbolized the blood spilled by Communist
workers in struggles to overthrow Capitalists.
No Soviet leader, known as First Party Secretaries, could be inaugurated
or buried without his coffin covered with red carnations. Also, visitors to
Moscow from brotherly Communist parties were always greeted at the Moscow
Airport by young girls with bouquets of his red carnations. At the time when the scheduled drinking party
took place, Mr. Krauze had already divested himself from the carnation business
while his daughter continued his business in the neighboring city of Lodz. Mr.
Krauze considered himself partly retired and entertained himself in the
mornings drinking vodka with a local policeman, known at the time as a militiaman.
When I asked him why he was friendly with the
policeman, he said that it was just habit. Over the years, he was always drinking
with local policemen, even during the German occupation, and such friendships
often saved his life. He told me he always knew ahead of time from the policeman
when there was to be a planned search of his house for any illegal business
activity. He was always warned in time to hide any compromising materials.
When Mr. Kaminski arrived it was with his
wife by his side, in a “luxurious” chauffeured limousine, made in the Soviet
Union under the name Volga. The trusty chauffeur was apparently not so
trustworthy because for the duration of our party he was left outside to occasionally
clasp his hands and stomp his feet to keep warm on the cold evening. Mr. Krauze, in spite his educational
shortcomings, was well-equipped for an ideological skirmish with Mr. Kaminski,
especially after the first liter of vodka. I was the lowest rank in this duel,
as my capacity to alcohol, even now, is miserably deficient. In spite of my
shortcomings during this party I drank so much vodka that it took several days
for me to recover and return to my senses. The duration of this party was
measured not in hours, but in bottles of vodka.
Somewhere between the first and second liter
of vodka, Mr. Kaminski already wobbly on his feet, pulled out a shiny Belgian-made
revolver and displayed it for us, as a symbol of power and trust the Communist
party bestowed on the trustworthy and obedient party officials. He also tried to entice Mr. Krauze to join the
party, which would offer him similar attributes of power and maybe even the
same kind of revolver and Soviet-made Volga car. His offer brought tears to the
eyes of Krauze, as never before had he been offered a job.
Usually it was he who hired other people. He
was visibly unimpressed with the Belgian revolver. He decided that it was time
to bring his own arguments to the ideological skirmish. He snapped his fingers and Mr. Johnny
appeared, addressing Zygmunt Krauze as uncle. “Tell Mr. Kaminski of your
obligations in this household. We are all friends, do not be afraid.”
“My obligations in the morning are to draw
the bath for Uncle Krauze and to check that the temperature is just right, not
too hot nor too cold. The next duty I
have is to boil the eggs. They should be not too soft and not too hard.” Then Mr. Krauze interrupted his long list of
obligations and explained that in fact Johnny is not his nephew but a butler.
Unfortunately in Socialist Poland the title of “butler” would be irritating,
therefore he was adopted by the family as a “nephew.” Mr. Kaminski was trying to counter Mr. Krauze’s
social position mentioning he had a party-assigned chauffer, which probably was
also a Secret Police informer to keep an eye on Mr. Kaminski’s activities.
Concerning living accommodations, Mr.
Kaminski couldn’t hope to compare to Mr. Krauze. He lived in very cramped
apartment which in Communist nomenclature was listed as an M2 or M3, no larger
than 60 square meters (645 square feet). While Mr. Krauze provided room and board for butler-Johnny,
who had his own separate bedroom. Mr.
Kaminski could not dare to accept his chauffer as a tenant in his own apartment
because of two reasons, one that his chuffer was younger than him, and his wife
Zofia was an attractive woman with prominent breasts, and secondly because in
his small apartment there was no place for an additional bed.
You could see the increasing envy on the
drunken face of Mr. Kaminski given Mr. Krauze’s financial status. The final
nail in the coffin was struck when Mr. Krauze invited Mr. Kaminski to visit his
garage where he parked two “splendid” limousines. One was a Chevrolet Impala in
an antique gold color and a brand new Mercedes 220 shining like a silver
dollar. A Chevrolet Impala of this color was probably the only one driven in
Warsaw. I am not sure if U.S. Diplomats in the U.S. Embassy had anything
similar. The Mercedes 220 was a special model and its color was a special
edition. It was originally sent to Bishop Klepacz of Lodz as a gift from the
former parishioners now living in Chicago. The Bishop, probably under the advice
of the Vatican, declined to drive in such luxury; therefore, he sold his car to
Mr. Krauze.
Upon their return from the garage both
gentlemen settled back into the dining room as long lost friends and started
reminding each other of the beauties of the Vilnius countryside from prewar
time. Now of course Vilnius was a capital of Soviet Republic of Lithuania. As the last liter of vodka was poured in the
100gram glasses and chased with marinated herring, our party, after only six
hours, was due to close. Mr. Krauze helped Mrs. Zofia to bring Mr. Kaminski to
his Volga car and they drove away. I knew then that the party was a great
success and I had in Mr. Kaminski a long-lasting friend.
He had proved to be such in arranging a passport
for my girlfriend Zofia to join me in Sweden. I saw Mr. Kaminski again, three
years later, after my second return from Sweden, when he helped me arrange the
duty-free import of an old rusty Mercedes 190. He also helped me (and later
Zofia) to get passports for my third trip to Sweden from which I did not return
to Poland, until I received U.S. citizenship.
When I came back to Poland after more than 10
years, I went back to the United Peasants Party to see Mr. Kaminski and thanked
him for all of his services and goodwill. Mr. Kaminski’s party was no longer in the same
location, but Mr. Kaminski was still there. When he saw me, he panicked. He
told me that I should not have risked coming back, because he had a lot of
troubles after my defection. I knew that I irritated the Polish Secret Police
(UB) with my defection to the west and emigration to the U.S., but I had no
idea that I was so important a cog in the Socialist wheel to warrant arrest. I
was not afraid to come back, because at that time the Communist system was
disintegrating in Poland.
The Secret Policemen and I were on the same
side of the barricades. We were both trying to earn as much money as we could.
The only difference between us was that I already had some dollars while they
aspired to earn them. I don’t know what
happened to Mr. Kaminski later. I hope that he transformed himself painlessly
from a Socialist to a Capitalist, maybe even a landowner to keep up with his
peasant party tradition. Who knows?
Foreign correspondent
I was so impressed with getting a passport
that I forgot about the Polish People’s Republic priorities. Instead of
immediately traveling to Sweden, I decided to clear my position with the Polish
Army, who still had no idea that I had another, more important assignment. I decided to return to Lublin and ask for a postponement
of my military training until I returned from Sweden. When I appeared at the
draft office of the Army, I was greeted by the jovial smile of the sergeant
sitting behind the desk in the entrance hall. “Lieutenant Czekajewski, it’s very good to
have you here. We’ve been looking for you all over Poland. Here is the ticket
to the engineering unit in the northwestern district in the village of
Podjuchy. Also, you will be getting a military uniform to travel there on the
next train.” I tried to explain to the
sergeant that I had been delegated to much more important duties in Sweden
where I was being sent by the Ministry of Higher Education. My explanation
caused paroxysms of laughter in the sergeant. He told me that he didn’t know of
any other Ministry except for the Ministry of Defense. His argument took me
aback and I had only a split second to make a decision. I turned around and
escaped from his office. I knew that it would be an hour or so before I would
be accosted by the Military Police and charged with desertion.
As I was walking down the main road intensely
contemplating my situation I met Professor Teske, a physicist who was the dean
of the physics department at our university. He knew me well from our weekly
“tea meetings” organized at our Institute. Seeing desperation on my face, Professor
Teske asked me why I was so troubled. I explained to him my situation. He had
an idea. “The only institution that can
help you is the Communist Party. Go there and ask for help.” I pleaded with him and told him that I didn’t
belong to the Party. “That’s even better. They will try to be magnanimous for a
non-Party citizen in need of help.”
He gave me an idea. During my previous stay in Sweden I had
written to the local party daily, People’s
Banner, a report about the miserable food Swedes eat. They sweetened
everything, even adding sugar to herring. We in Poland ate much better and
would never mix sugar with marinated hearing. The article was printed as a
convincing argument that the best country to eat in is Poland, and luxuries of
the Capitalist west are just enemy propaganda.
I went then to the same paper to remind them of my culinary piece of
literature and ask for help. The editor of the paper was very sympathetic to my
cause but he told me that he had no influence in the Polish People’s Army. But he knew someone who did. The most
influential person was the Second Secretary of the District Party Committee who
during the Second World War was in the same partisan unit as the colonel now in
charge of the drafting office. They went hunting and drank vodka together. He
may be able to help. The Second Secretary’s office was on the second floor in
the same building as the office of the journal’s publisher.
We went there immediately and I had occasion
to explain to the Second Secretary the importance of my mission to Sweden. In
the first place, I worked in the field of atomic physics. I was being sent to
learn as much as possible and transfer this knowledge to Lublin. The local Institute of Physics where I worked
had entrusted me with a special mission, which correlated and agreed with the Five
Year Plan of Scientific Research. Unfortunately, the provincial drafting office
disregarded the Ministry of Education’s project and was drafting me to learn
how to build pontoon bridges across rivers. It was a waste of my talents.
Primarily, I was a communication specialist, a specialist in radio transmitting
and they were trying to assign me to an engineering unit.
The Second Secretary agreed with me and
cordially assured me that the Party was always ready to help a young scientist.
He picked up the telephone and called the colonel in charge at the Drafting
Office. He explained that a terrible mistake had been made and
Comrade-Lieutenant Czekajewski was willing to undertake a needed upgrade to his
military qualification, but after he returned back to Poland. The colonel on the
other side of the telephone wire completely agreed with him and asked that I return
to the drafting office and speak directly with him. I cordially said goodbye to
the Second Secretary and assured the Editor of People’s Banner that I would write a series of articles, not only on
how terrible food is in the Capitalist west, but also how poorly the working class
was treated.
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Jan Czekajewski, Polish Army
Officer ID.
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This time I promised I would report for training
once I returned from Sweden. The colonel told me that this time I didn’t need
to be concerned about training and he made some note about my status in the
file. I was happy as a lark. I went down and as I looked at the flabbergasted
sergeant, I was tempted to show him a finger, but cautiously limited myself to
a broad Slavic smile. The same day I
traveled by train to Warsaw and the next day I left for Sweden.
Uppsala here I come again (Autumn 1962)
This time I left Poland via East Berlin. The Berlin
Wall was already constructed and I could not easily pass into West Berlin with
the same ease as was possible during my previous visit in 1960. As usual I was
travelling by train. My train had already crossed the Polish border and was
heading toward Communist East Berlin. The
sleeping car compartment I shared with another young man, who was traveling to
Sweden to get married to some girl of Polish origin. I was suspicious of
anybody and I did not disclose to him the details of my trip. The Polish butler
who tended the beds in this sleeping car came over with a bottle of vodka eager
to chat. I knew that most probably his second function was to inform the Secret
Police on Polish travelers. I made a serious mistake to join him in his
compartment for a drink. I suspected that the reason was to gain some
compromising information on me. I was
sure that even drunk I could still be enthusiastic about the Socialist system.
This was true, I was enthusiastic but I over estimated my stomach. I returned
to my compartment deadly sick and vomited the entire contents of my stomach
along the train’s corridor.
In Berlin I stopped for a few hours to meet
my friend Dr. Waclaw Kornaszewski, who according to his wife was on some kind
of scholarship to famous Charite Hospital in East Berlin. I knew Dr.
Kornaszewski from my years in Wroclaw, when I was constructing medical
equipment for the Institute of Aviation Medicine, where he was director and
Institute founder. Later Dr. Kornaszewski left for the Congo where he was
teaching infectious tropical diseases at the university hospital in Kinshasa.
While in Africa Dr. Kornaszewski was one of the first to diagnose AIDS. We
exchanged correspondence during his stay in the Congo and rekindled our
friendship recently, in 2007 during my visit to Wroclaw.
When I arrived in Uppsala I felt more secure,
as I was familiar with this environment and had already established a few
friendships. One of the most important was my friendship with Henryk Ryzko,
whom I met year ago. He was working as a researcher at the Institute of High Voltage,
which was located probably 7 km from downtown Uppsala. He refused to have a car
and instead biked to town if needed. After
my arrival the Student Union provided me with a one room apartment in a student
dorm on the outskirts of Uppsala known as Eriksberg on Granitvagen Street and I
resumed my job in Professor Tove’s department.
In the meantime I was waiting for the arrival
of my beloved Zofia, who was finishing her internship at Lodz Medical Academy. Month after month passed and Zofia could not
come due to passport difficulties. Apparently the Secret Police in Wroclaw
requested from the Passport Office in Lodz a restriction on her foreign travels
in connection with my person. They speculated that we were conspiring to escape
to the west. After a few months separation Zofia obtained a passport and
arrived in Uppsala. I wasn’t sure what made the passport office change its mind,
until very recently in 2010. Forty-eight
years later I learned from my secret files of the Communist Secret Police, that
the intelligence officer in Lublin intervened with a corresponding office in
Lodz to allow Zofia to travel to join me in Uppsala. Apparently, they had
long-term, serious plans to cultivate “friendly” relations with me hoping that
I could become their secret agent in the west. At that time I was not aware of
their plans.
After Zofia’s arrival we both were slightly
surprised by each other. On my side I could not believe that this graduate of
medical school was not able to notice when the water was boiling. Apparently,
Zofia lived a sheltered life and all the cooking was done by her mother. She
simply did not need to know when water was boiling and that that was the moment
to make tea. My modest room with a narrow bed did not impress her either.
Apparently she expected much better accommodations. Shortly after arriving in Uppsala Zofia got a
job at the university hospital and started working as an X-ray technician. Her
immediate boss was Professor F. Knutsson, a well-known specialist in Swedish
X-ray technology.
In 1962-63 I had developed some contacts with
other departments in the university and began independently servicing their
instruments. I also sold, together with Professor P.A. Tove, my invention for a
cardio-tachometer to a Swedish company Elema-Schonander which was later
purchased by Siemens from Germany.
At the time of my vacation in 1963 I had already
“amassed” $5,000, which was the sum needed to purchase my French Simca Etoile
1300. When our vacation time came in August 1963 Zofia and I decided to travel
to Paris to purchase our dream car. It coincided with a post card from my
friend Reniek Odulinski, who announced that he had escaped from Poland on a Jawa
350 motorcycle and was now residing at the Palace Villersexel in France. He
mentioned that he was the guest of Countess de Grammon and that there were
three ladies in the palace with more than 20 empty bedrooms. He eluded that I
could be his guest and his companion if I came to France.
I did not know at that time that Zofia was
having a love affair with another doctor, who was practicing at the same
hospital. Apparently duality of relations did not bother her. At the same time my Polish passport expired
and the Polish Consulate kept it without explanation. I became mentally perturbed and in the winter
of 1963 suffered a full-fledged mental breakdown. I was admitted to the open ward in the psychiatric
clinic at the university hospital with all the symptoms of a mental breakdown
including hallucinations. I don’t remember how long I stayed there, but my best
guess is about three months, until the spring of 1964.
Reniek leaves
behind “Polish People’s Republic”
August 15th, 1963 is not registered in astronomical annals as a
special phenomenon, except for the fact that on that day my friend Reniek
Odulinski left the Polish People’s Republic. Our country was missing its most
ardent supporter, the one who became famous among the Wroclaw Secret Police for
his willingness to cooperate and even more importantly, the one who delivered a
written description of the complexities of my sinister soul. They did not know
that I was the coauthor of such documents, but Reniek was praised both for his
cooperation and for his delivery.
He crossed the western border of Poland on his
Jawa 350 while Polish customs officials, were busy steeping their Russian tea, and
dividing between themselves confiscated Marlboro cigarettes from tourists. It was the middle of the afternoon and the western
sun was shining in Reniek’s eyes. He was exhilarated by the prospect of living
in the west and by the smell of high octane, leaded gasoline. His future was certainly better from a gastronomical
point of view. He was already tired of chicken soup and cream puffs as the main
staple of his diet. Early in his life in Wroclaw, Reniek discovered that from an
economical point of view the combination of chicken soup with noodles and cream
puffs made sense. It provided him with the maximum number of calories needed to
satisfy a few young ladies competing for his attention. Some of them were
sufficiently smart and practical, bringing sandwiches when they came to visit
him. Reniek, a gentleman to this day, does not want to say that those
sandwiches made any difference in the quality of his performance.
He had a personal grouch against the First Secretary
of the United Party of Polish Workers who was responsible for the dismal
condition of his living quarters, which consisted of one room, with only a faucet
of cold water and no toilet. He got his room as a “guest room” when he was
assigned by Czestochowa Technical University to practice mechanical engineering
in the factory making equipment for the food industry.
He couldn’t open the windows in his room
because the communal restrooms for the entire factory of more than 100 workers
were located directly under his room. As
usual, the drainage of urine was less than accurate and workers had to walk on
the compromised bricks to reach the urinals and then return back to work.
During the summer the stink from this establishment was unbearable and Reniek
had to keep his window closed.
Once Reniek crossed the Polish People’s
Republic border, he severed all his contacts with Polish authorities both secret
and overt. His destination was France.
In France he had a distant cousin with an aristocratic name—de Pomian—who
defected to France after a short stint in Communist diplomacy. He invited
Reniek to come and visit him.
Visiting Le Chateau Villersexel
It was at the time of Reniek’s departure from
Poland to France when I was planning to travel in the same direction to
purchase my dream car, a Simca Etoile. I had already saved $5,000 for this
purpose and was thinking that I could find a bargain for a Simca costing about
that much. Shortly after Reniek arrived to the home of his aristocratic cousin
in France, he learned that his cousin and his wife had been offered summer jobs
cataloging the large Châteaux library owned by the De Grammont family. As usual
in aristocracy, the French and Polish did not allow each other to starve and
they created such a job for Mr. de Pomian for the summer of 1963. As Reniek had
just arrived with Mr. de Pomian, naturally he was invited as well. Once he got
to the palace of Villersexel, he could not believe that the 20 plus bedrooms
could stay unoccupied. He immediately, without consulting the owners, sent me a
post card, stating shortly that he was there, in Villersexel, alone with three
ladies: Mrs. de Grammont senior; her companion—a Polish “aristocrat”—Mademoiselle
de Lulu; and her young daughter Jane Marie de Grammont. He was thinking that I
would complement their company and he had obviously forgotten that I would
arrive with Zofia.
In the meantime, we procured a lift from a
Swedish couple driving south to Italy who took us to Paris. In Paris, before
purchasing my dream car, we decided to sleep in a tent recommended to us by the
Polish Consulate in Stockholm. It was a memorable mistake. The tent was first
deployed in the camping grounds Boi de Boulogne, where it had its first rain
test. Nobody told us that we needed a plastic sheet above the tent, as the roof
was completely transparent to water. One has to give credit to the designers:
the floor was made of solid plastic and retained all the water which was
dripping from the roof. We couldn’t sleep all night and the next day I gave up
and purchased the silver Simca Etoile on display in the Paris salon on Champ
Elise’s. I was thinking that we may be able to sleep in the car if the rain
persisted.
The next day we traveled toward Villersexel
where the comforts of luxury were waiting for us, as we expected from the short
message from Reniek described in his post card. At that time I did not know,
but Villersexel is located close to the Swiss border, maybe 100 km or less and
we arrived there the next day. When we
arrived at Villersexel the Chateau was still in its glory. The park was well
kept by a few gardeners and the Chateau itself was cared for by uniformed
butlers. In this front portal I noticed two 19th century canons,
which during a subsequent visit, 30 years later, somehow disappeared, probably
sold along with other “antique” items to keep the Chateaux operating.
We drove our new Simca to the main entrance
and knocked on the large, ornamental door. A uniformed butler opened the door
and asked whose arrival he should announce to the owner of the splendid
property. I asked for Mr. Odulinski, my friend. Unfortunately instead of
Reniek, a young woman in her middle 30’s showed up and asked us to enter the
salon. She spoke English very well and after a short conversation on
meaningless subjects, told us that she wished us safe travels in France. There
was no mention made of us remaining at the Chateaux as guests. Shortly thereafter,
my friend Reniek showed up, embarrassed, probably realizing that I took for
sure his invitation to stay at the Chateaux. He appeared very busy and told us that
he only had a few moments to spend with us but that around four in the afternoon
we could meet him in the garden. We left the Chateaux counting the hours until
4 p.m. when Reniek would appear to clarify the situation. When Reniek arrived
in the garden, he was tense. He told us that at five o’clock in the palace they
usually have a tea party. For each party they dress themselves in costumes from
different époques. A collection of such dresses was in the attic. Some of the
dresses were as old as the 16th century, others as recent as the 18th
century. Since dressing in such attire
was not an easy procedure for a modern man, especially one from Socialist
Poland, Reniek required the help of a butler. The butler would watch to make
sure that such terrible mishaps would not happen, like mixing the 17th
century rapier with an 18th century musketeer’s uniform. Reniek was
tense and told us that he didn’t have much time for conversation because his
butler was waiting to assist him with dressing.
I have to say that I was disappointed with
Reniek, but Reniek is a person who had his shortcomings and it was also my
fault that I didn’t ask him more questions before coming to Villersexel,
especially since Zofia was tagging along. Shortly after, his aristocratic cousin, Mr. de
Pomian, had shown up and explained to us in plain Polish, that the problem was
with my girlfriend Zofia. At the time she had a posture and bust of a model,
and the three ladies who owned the Chateaux didn’t look so good in comparison.
Simply, if I had arrived alone, the situation would be different. After
spending all of our savings on the new car, we had no money left to visit
France and its splendor. We decided to drive back to Sweden, sleeping inside the
Simca when it rained and using our tent on dry nights.
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Palace Villersexel.
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Zofia preparing lunch during
the trip to Villersexel (1963).
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Reniek Odulinski with Jane
Marie de Grammont. Please notice the “famous” Jawa 350 motorcycle on which
Reniek came to France.
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Reniek Odulinski dressed as a
French nobleman at the Palace of Villersexel (1963).
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Villersexel
revisited
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PalaceVillerexel’s interior.
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Jan revisiting the Palace of
Villersexel (year 2000).
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Laura at breakfast at Chateaux Villersexel (2000)
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What happened
to Villersexel aristocrats?
After our return home, to Columbus, Ohio I
called Reniek, who now lives in Montreal, Canada and asked him what he knew
about the aristocratic women he met during his first visit to Chateaux
Villersexel in 1964. Apparently, the
original owner of the palace died, and passed all the property not to the
daughter but to her companion, who described herself as a Polish aristocrat
with the nickname “Lulu.” The daughter,
Jean Marie de Grammont was left with only a small trust account. A few years later, she traveled to Montreal to
visit Reniek, who in the meantime was married with two sons. She was completely
impractical. She didn’t even have a credit card to purchase a return ticket to
Paris. Reniek had to pay for her return trip. She died while she was still a
young woman due to cancer. Mademoiselle
“Lulu” died also and she is buried in the same cemetery as all of the de
Grammont family members in Villersexel.
Christmas
1964: Second return to Poland
My position at the Institute of Physics was
unsecure and unstable. I did not have a secure university position and my
income was related to grants which were received by Professor Tove in the Department
of Electronics. In addition I had mounting personal problems with Zofia and
confusion with my status as an immigrant. I wasn’t sure if I would return to
Poland or stay in the west. The Polish Consulate had confiscated my passport
which made my travel to other countries impossible. One day I was told that Professor
Tove had no more money and unemployment added to the stress I was already
facing. I became delusional with the fear of persecution and ended up in the
open psychiatric clinic at the university hospital in Uppsala, where I think I
stayed for about three months until the spring of 1964. I must give credit to
Zofia. During my stay in the hospital
she visited me every day. In an ironic twist of fate, she would suffer from
mental illness herself 10 years later.
My disease was temporary, while hers devastated her for the rest of her
life. Zofia’s illness presented itself in Columbus, Ohio after I had already
divorced her. Remembering Zofia’s visit
to my psychiatric clinic, I take care of her daily needs to this day.
Fortunately new medicines (Zeprexa) allow her to live independently with her
sister, who also suffers from the same genetically related disease of schizophrenia.
When I was released I was healthy enough to
work again. In the local paper I noticed an advertisement for an electronic
engineer for a group of neurologists working at Wallenberg Laboratory. I went
there and was hired. Two fellows, Jan Ekstedt and Erik Stalberk were studying
electrical activity in single fiber potentials in the muscles. During the short time of one month I designed
an electrical circuit which helped them record the electrical impulses from the
muscles of myasthenia patients. The circuit was called the “window trigger” and
was a great success. My coworkers have written a number of scientific papers in
which they mentioned the use of this device. They were appreciative enough to
place my name in these papers as a coauthor. One of the papers was published in
the Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology
under the title: “Oscilloscopic recording of muscle fiber action potentials:
the window trigger and the delay unit.”
During the time of my nervous breakdown
psychiatrists speculated that one reason for my mental health problems could be
a so-called “prison psychosis” such as they saw frequently in the prisoners who
were isolated from mainstream society. I
spoke English at work and had no practical knowledge of Swedish, and was therefore
isolated from mainstream Swedish social life. I felt constricted in everyday
life, especially because in Poland I excelled in the nuances of the Polish language,
including humor. Before I left the
psychiatric clinic it was suggested that I return to Poland where my recovery
would be faster once the language barrier was removed. I took this advice to heart and after a few
months’ work at the Wallenberg Laboratory, Zofia and I returned to Poland, just
before Christmas 1964. On our return trip we drove two cars, the new Simca
Etoile 1300 which I had purchased in Paris and an old, rusty Mercedes 190 which
we intended to sell in Poland.
Letter to
Prime Minister, Eugene Szyr
After my second return from Sweden and
recovery from the nervous breakdown I started to look for an opportunity to
make some money by selling my inventions and ideas in the field of electronic
instrumentation. To start, I went to the
police headquarters Department of Highway Traffic and offered them a speedometer
project, based on two pneumatic tubes stretched across the road at a known
distance. I don’t remember if I had seen such a concept in Sweden, or if it was
my own idea. Cars driving on the road would produce two pressure pulses spaced
by the time interval. This interval would be reversely proportional to vehicle
speed and would be electronically measured. If the interval was sufficiently
short it would indicate excessive speed of vehicle and alarm the police patrol
down the road. Now I see these kinds of
devices quite common on the roads in the U.S., but at that time in Poland this
concept was nonexistent. Unfortunately even the police department, known at
that time as the militia, could not pay for such an invention to a private
person. Therefore I decided to look for another customer.
I turned my attention to the medical field. At that time my girlfriend, Zofia was
finishing her studies at the Medical Academy in Lodz and through her I got in
contact with Professor Dr. Jan Moll, a famous Polish cardiac surgeon. To him I
offered a cardio tachometer which I designed in Sweden. He was very
enthusiastic about it and mentioned how archaic the instruments were that he
had to use in his practice. Unfortunately, as was the case of the Highway
Police, the Medical Academy could not contract any project with a private
person. Disappointed, I decided to write a letter to the Polish Deputy Prime
Minister, Comrade Eugene Szyr. He was in charge of the State Committee for
Science and Technology and I felt my appeal to him was very appropriate for the
problem I was facing.
Surprisingly, many years later one of my
friends from Wroclaw Polytechnic, Richard Pregiel, became his replacement. My letter, as I remember was labeled as bureaucratic
idiocy, allowing state enterprises to import expensive instruments from Capitalist
countries rather than pay local inventors to build them in Poland. In my
naiveté I was thinking that it was a defect of the system, while in fact “the
system” worked perfectly well, forbidding the engineering class and
entrepreneurs to earn more than the “prescribed by state” salaries. My letter
and what followed next was just a process of learning my lesson, that if I liked
to live and prosper, the Communist state was not designed for me or maybe I
wasn’t suited for it. After I wrote my
respectful letter and addressed it to Prime Minister Szyr and finished it with
the sentence “I hope His Excellency can satisfactorily resolve this problem,” I
dropped it in the mail box. I felt that I had defined my problem as the
bureaucracy behind limiting the ability of the Medical Academy to pay me, a
private person, for designing and building Cardio-tachometer.
In one month’s time, or so, I became
perturbed by their lack of reply. I decided to drive to Warsaw to the office of
the Committee for Research and Development and ask if any decision regarding my
problem had been made. I knocked first
on the door of the office of the Committee located on the most prominent street
in Warsaw and revealed my name which was immediately recognized by one of the
officials. He opened a folder with my name on it and inside was my letter with
some scribbling, apparently by the Prime Minister himself. It read, “Make
Czekajewski to see me immediately!” I was told to wait for another day and the
Prime Minister would see me in his office.
As usual, I stayed overnight at the villa of Zofia’s uncle, Mr. Zygmunt
Krauze, who was one of a few private entrepreneurs still active in Poland. At
the time in his basement, which had three levels, he was producing cotton puffs
used to apply powder to female faces to enhance their beauties. His villa on 39
Olimpijska Street was built just before the Second World War, and the old
owners in anticipation of the coming war built a bomb shelter beneath their
home. Therefore there were three levels of the basement, each deeper in the
ground than the previous one. I shared
with Uncle Krauze my excitement that I was being blessed with a personal audience
with Prime Minister Szyr. Uncle Krauze who by his account was sitting in seven different
prisons seven different times without conviction was unimpressed. He just told
me, that if I went to see Comrade Szyr, I should wear warm underpants, as there
was always a possibility that I would spend days, if not months, in prison. I
laughed off his warning that night but the next morning I dressed myself warmly
to visit the minister.
When I arrived I was directed to the second floor where I had to sit
and wait. I was told that the Prime Minister was too busy, by his deputy,
Minister Chylinski and would see me shortly. At this time I was not aware that
Comrade Chylinski’s proper name should have been Jan Bierut, as he was the son
of the first Communist president of Poland, Soviet agent, Boleslaw Bierut.
Chylinski decided to assume the name of his mother when advancing through the
party hierarchy.
When I came to the committee it was 11a.m.
and I was waiting patiently for another hour or more. Finally I became restless
and was ready to leave when suddenly Comrade Chylinski appeared and barked an
impersonal order at me: “Come in.” He sat
behind the office desk with two phones on it. One was the standard black;
another was reddish-brown in color resembling red beets. From the start his attitude was negative
toward me and he began with an accusation that I was trying to make money while
the working class and peasants paid for my education. He was further outraged
because I patented my invention in Sweden and was now trying to entrap the
Polish State in costly litigation. Apparently his delay in arrival was due to a
visit to some intelligence headquarters where he found out that I in fact
patented this invention in Sweden. He even reached to the reddish phone telling
me that it was connected to the Secret Police and at a moment’s notice I may
end up in handcuffs on my way to prison. This was already too much for me, so I
told him that I was prepared for such an eventuality and that I was dressed
warmly for just such an occasion. To
this day I am happy to say that I’ve never seen the inside of a Communist
prison, or any prison for that matter, although I might have been able to
enrich myself with such an experience.
I was not surprised at his findings as I kept
no secrets about patenting my invention. In addition, I could foresee such
complications in Poland, and therefore I had approached Professor Per Arno
Tove, to serve as a co-inventor. I told Comrade Chylinski that my invention
fully belonged to me and no Polish workers’ or peasants’ money was spent on my
research in Sweden. Comrade Chyliski temporarily calmed down and suggested that
I should look for a job in the local medical instrumentation factory that made
X-ray equipment in the suburb of Warsaw, Wola. He told me that any possibility
of private payment for my inventions was out of the question and that I should
go to this factory and discuss the possibility of employment with a manager. On
my request to reimburse me for a gas and mileage for driving from the city of
Lodz, he mentioned that such reimbursement had no legal precedence. I was
pissed, but I went to the X-ray machines factory to hear what they had to offer.
When I arrived, apparently the director was alerted by Comrade Chylinski
regarding my arrival, because he was waiting for me at the entrance. In his office
he introduced himself as Engineer Wienckowski. He told me that he could employ
me immediately with a standard salary for engineers, but he dismissed the possibility
of an apartment. At that time in Warsaw there was a shortage of apartments and
some people with families had to wait for 10 or more years to receive accommodations.
The only readily affordable and available housing was the “workers’ barracks”
in which a minimum of three people had to share one room. Besides being
cramped, there was a high occurrence of people “embellishing themselves” with
vodka, and hygiene was certainly not their strong point. There was also one communal
bathroom for a large number of rooms and a shortage of warm water.
Seeing the disappointment on my face,
Engineer Wienckowski asked me a personal question: “If you had been to Sweden,
why did you come back? Your letter to the
Prime Minister may have amused him, but don’t you realize that they are making
a fool out of you. I cannot change the system. I cannot pay you for
consultation. They have written a number of volumes painstakingly detailing
what I can and cannot do. I am not able to fart without looking into such books
first. If you still have an option to
return to Sweden go there or stop making waves. If you write too much, or you
talk too much they will lock you up and throw away the key. Goodbye and good luck.”
`Engineer Wienckowski opened my eyes to the
reality of life in a Socialist system. I left thinking that from now on I would
have to go back where I came from, namely Sweden. My experience writing letters
to vice Prime Minister Szyr was very, very educational.
The Mercedes 190
Why is this
rusty old German car worthy of a full chapter in this book? If you follow my narrative you will out find
why. When I purchased the car my primary motivation for the transaction was
actually a money transfer. In simple terms, western cars, especially a Mercedes
Benz, were in high demand in Poland. I didn’t realize that I was about to be
involved on many levels in many different idiotically corrupt schemes all
orchestrated by the Polish government.
Many of the situations were both scary and funny; but all’s well that
ends well and in the end nobody died or went to prison even if we were
dangerously close to both.
In 1965 Zofia
and I decided to return to Poland. Each
of us could bring back a car without paying customs duties. We already had one car, a new Simca Etoile
which I purchased in France a year before. Now I decided to purchase another
one just for resale. Because I had already brought back one car when returning
to Poland from Sweden in 1961 it was safer for me to bring a decrepit, rusty,
10-year-old Mercedes instead of a new Simca.
As far as the customs clearance office was concerned Zofia was now the official
owner of the Simca. To purchase the Mercedes
190 we went to the junk yard outside of Uppsala. The owner of the yard was a Gypsy,
judging by his vocabulary and skin complexion. The price was right, about
$400—and I didn’t mind the holes in the floor due to the extensive rust. This
holed floor was immaterial during the summer, but in the winter it resulted in
mud covered feet for the driver. Good, water proof rubber galoshes were
advisable for driving this car in the winter.
After crossing the
Polish border, Zofia’s Simca was immediately declared customs free, but my
Mercedes became subject to import tax. As I did not have an official residence
with a garage in Poland, the neighbor of Zofia’s uncle living in Warsaw on
Olimpijska Street, offered his garage for my car’s temporary storage. His name
was Mr. Truchan. At his garage my Mercedes was sealed by the customs office
pending my appeal for releasing it from customs duties. With the help of Mr.
Kaminski from the Polish Peasants’ Party my appeal for the free import of my
Mercedes was soon successful.
The helpful
attitude of Mr. Truchan didn’t last long though. Within two weeks after my
Mercedes was free to drive he declared that I had to remove my car from his
garage, or if I was agreeable, he himself would purchase it from me. I was
confused, but since this car’s only purpose was resale, I agreed to sell it to
Mr. Truchan for 90,000 Polish zloty. This was a fair price taking into account,
that the black market conversion rate of dollars was 100 zloty per one
dollar. My joy did not last long.
Shortly after I got a call from Zofia’s uncle that the deal should be void and
I should return the money to Mrs. Truchan, because Mr. Truchan was now a fugitive
from justice hiding in an unknown location. Apparently he escaped from his home
in middle of the night while the police were knocking on his door. He was
suspected to be part of the “meat affair” in which meat from privately raised
pigs was sold in state-owned stores. The police were searching the premises when
they found my car, still officially titled to me, but suspected to be owned by
Mr. Truchan. They sealed it a second time until further notice. Now I had no
money, because I returned it to Mrs. Truchan and no car. Mr. Truchan was
apparently hiding in the nunnery in Lodz. His refuge was organized with the
help of Mr. Krauze’s adopted son, Witek D., who was also a priest and secretary
of His Eminency, Bishop Klepacz.
The only thing
left for me to do was to go to the police and claim that the car was mine and the
police had made a gross mistake in assuming that it belonged to Mr. Truchan.
There was a danger in my bluff, because I was afraid that during the police
search of Mr. Truchan’s home they had found a note from me stating that I
transferred ownership of the Mercedes to Mr. Truchan for 90,000 zloty. Nevertheless, I decided to take the
risk. After some wrangling, the police
released the car and this time I was able to drive it from Warsaw to Lodz,
where I temporarily resided at Zofia’s mother’s apartment. I was later told
that Mr. Truchan, after some weeks of religious contemplations, decided to
return to Warsaw in the middle of the night to visit his wife. To his surprise
he found in his marital bed another man, this time a priest who had just
returned from Rome where he was studying Gregorian Chants. Apparently the priest
escaped to the garden through the same window from which Mr. Truchan had
escaped the police.
The next weekend
after arriving with my Mercedes in Lodz I decided to drive it to the used car market to assess its value.
I didn’t talk about selling my car. I just looked at other vehicles and
compared prices. Then I went home. It
didn’t take more than 30 minutes for somebody to ring the doorbell. I opened
the door to see two gentlemen who explained that they had seen me at the car
market. They were asking if I would like to sell my Mercedes 190. Initially I
was suspecting that it was a police setup since a car imported without customs
duties shouldn’t be sold for the next five years. The gentlemen who visited me were aware of my
worries and explained that they were not from the police, but had a genuine
interest in purchasing my old, rusty Mercedes 190 for any sum I asked. To support their position they opened their
briefcase with a large amount of money in it. All would be paid in cash, they
mentioned. I explained that this car was an old wreck and not worth much. It
was driven in Sweden where they used copious amounts of salt on the roads and
therefore it was rusted through. They could not be dissuaded. The older
gentleman introduced himself a as trader in goose down. He explained that he
purchased goose down from the farmers and delivered it to the state companies
which make goose down pillows. This was a highly profitable profession in the Socialist
country where every citizen should be equally poor.
He had a sufficient
amount of money to buy a new Mercedes 190 or even newer model Mercedes 220, but
this would alert authorities to his wealth. He preferred to drive an old car,
like mine. When I tried to explain to him that this car was not really drivable,
Mr.Kuphal commented that he would make it look like new. What he really needed
was an old motor number. He would register this car as 10 years old, made in
the year 1955, and replace all the parts in it with new parts he would bring
from West Germany. I risked an extraordinary high price of 240,000 zloty which
was more than double what I had received and returned to Mr. Truchan. Mr.
Kuphal did not flinch a bit when he counted and handed to me the appropriate
amount of money from his briefcase. He also asked me to accompany him to the
Transportation Department in Lodz, where the director herself (it was a lady)
would provide the proper documents for transferring the title from me to Mr.
Kuphal. I was surprised how easy and “legal” such an operation was for Mr. Kuphal.
Apparently somewhere in the mentality of people, including government officials
there still existed the concept of a free enterprise.
Regarding the
above mentioned priests, including the secretary to Bishop Klepacz, Witold and
his musically gifted friend who had a “religious” experience with Mrs. Truchan,
they became my good clients. They purchased from me U.S. dollars and paid the
high black market conversion rate. Reverend Witek was often traveling to Rome
together with Bishop Klepacz. When in Rome, Reverend Witek purchased glossy
pictures of martyred saints, which he smuggled back to Poland in the Bishop’s
diplomatic luggage. These pictures were later traded with local parish priests,
who passed them to farmers claiming that they were blessed by the Pope himself
in Rome. In exchange for the glossy pictures of saints ecstatic farmers were enthusiastically
sending monetary “offerings” to the parish priests. The more shine and color the pictures had, the
more offerings they brought.
Nowadays I have
mixed feelings about my participation in spreading religious faith in the Polish
countryside during the time of an oppressive Atheist regime. Years later Reverend Witek immigrated to
Austria and acquired the title of Monsignor. Once, when I was visiting Poland I was told
that Monsignor Witek in Vienna cherished a relationship with another man on
whom he bestowed not only affection, but also lavish gifts paid for from the
funds entrusted to him by Zofia’s uncle, Mr. Krauze, who was also his adopted
father. In a short time nothing was left for the grandchildren of Mr. Krauze,
after he died. If I was religious, I
would have some doubts.
Balaton Lake
|
Jan dressed in pajamas resembling
an outfit for inmates of Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz. Picture
taken in Czechoslovakia during the trip to Hungary.
|
In the summer of 1965 I had been in Poland seven months,
following three years in Sweden. I was
busy avoiding military service and steady employment, both of which would cramp
my freewheeling lifestyle. Avoiding military service was a paramount task, as
being drafted would make me ineligible for traveling to the “West.” Money I had. I left Sweden with money in my
pocket and an old Mercedes 190 car; which, although very rusty, I sold for a
huge profit to Mr. Kuphal, the black marketer trading in goose down. In the
summer of 1965, Hungary began to attract Polish tourists. Hungary offered
unlimited exchange of Polish currency into Hungarian forints, which was an
unusual phenomenon in the countries of socialist persuasion. The motivation behind all of it though was
for Hungary to capitalize on the negative trade balance with Poland.
In addition, there was no need for a passport. We had only
to show our identification cards, which we were all required to have any
way. It was a common practice for
tourists to bring goods or merchandise with them to sell along their travel
route while purchasing additional goods and merchandise to bring to
Poland. Each transaction resulted in a
large profit that made travel not only affordable, but also lucrative. I had no idea what the most desirable
merchandise to take to Hungary could be, but I decided to find out once I got
there. In the meantime, I had plenty of Polish currency to buy whatever caught
my eye in Hungary or Czechoslovakia. We drove our Simca Etoile from
Sweden. It was a four cylinder French
sedan I purchased two years earlier in Paris. This would be the vehicle to take
us to Hungary. The final destination was Balaton Lake—a body of shallow water,
that for landlocked Hungarians and Czechs resembled something of a small sea.
Four of us set out on this trip: I and my future wife
Zofia, my future mother-in-law Emilia and my future sister-in-law Wanda. To
safely transport such a large amount of Polish bills, I decided to stash them
in the ventilation system of my car. By selecting this particular location to
hide the bills, I forced us to keep the windows open even while it rained. We
took along the tent and enough canned goods to last until we reached
Hungary. In Hungary, we were prepared to
use local currency (forints) after converting Polish zlotys.
I remember we took with us a large jar of pickled
cucumbers, which we didn’t end up eating so we brought it back to Poland after
two months of traveling. On our way
back, as we were crossing the Polish border in the middle of night, our
cucumbers caught the gaze of the customs officers who couldn’t figure out who
in the hell would bring pickled cucumbers with them to Poland.
The four of us loaded ourselves, tent, pneumatic mattresses
plus canned food to survive travel through Czechoslovakia into the Simca Etoile
stuffed full of Polish zlotys in the ventilation system. Because Hungary was
the only socialist country to exchange zlotys to forints without limit, we
lived in style and ate like royalty while there. I remember when we arrived in Prague, we had
to stay in a private room since all of the hotels were sold out and there was
nowhere to pitch a tent in the capital city. To my embarrassment, I did not
realize that we were supposed to pay to the owners of the apartment for our
stay. I assumed that they accepted us as guests. That same night Zofia’s mother
became very sick and was doubled over with pain. She was in no condition to
travel anymore. Not realizing how sick she was, we purchased a train ticket for
her and sent her back to Lodz (Poland). After our return, two months later, we
learned that Emilia’s pains were a result of cancer. She was treated in a local
hospital with experimental chemotherapy as the cancer spread wildly, becoming
inoperable. She lived five more years and was able to come to Sweden, where she
died. Wanda came with Emilia to Sweden and later joined her sister and me in
Columbus, Ohio.
Besides the commercial and touristic intentions of our
trip, there was yet a third motivation.
I had received a short letter from a researcher in Fairbanks, Alaska. He
was asking for a reprint of a paper I had written in Sweden with Dr. Zbigniew
Grabowski titled The Rocket Born Solid State
Spectrometer for Measuring Radiation in Aurora. It was printed in an
internationally renowned publication Nuclear
Instruments and Methods. Apparently, this paper was also read at Alaska
University, where they conducted similar research. Being sure, that my correspondence in Poland
was being closely checked by Secret Police, I did not answer the researcher
while in Poland. Instead, I decided to write to him from Hungary—believing that
the Hungarians did not have me on their list of suspected persons. When we
arrived at Balaton Lake I wrote to this researcher that I would love to see
such beautiful country as Alaska and sent him a copy of my paper. I had no idea that this would set a chain of
events into motion that would include my emigration to the United States,
starting my own company—Columbus Instruments—and settling down in Columbus, OH.
Once we arrived at Balaton Lake and pitched a tent on the
beach, it rained and thundered during a summer storm that night. Tired from a
long drive I didn’t anticipate that the lake would swell and engulf the tents
and cars that were parked on the beach. When water reached my butt, I woke up
and alerted Zofia and Wanda to run to higher ground while I ran to rescue the
car in the nick of time. Less lucky were
two neighboring Germans traveling by small VW bus, a relic today. They were
drunk when they fell asleep and because they slept on a higher level inside the
bus, they didn’t realize that the lake water had engulfed the motor as well.
They had no chance of moving the vehicle. Unmoved, they relocated themselves to
the roof of the bus and continued to sleep past noon. Apparently, they were
from West Germany and they were wealthy. A car wasn’t a big ticket item for
them, or maybe they had good flood insurance?
Next to us there were a couple of Poles who also arrived by
car and slept in tents. One of them, as I remember, was a colonel in the Polish
Army and he loudly and visibly objected to my flamboyant, provocative pajamas:
“a la Auschwitz?” He commented that I
constituted a disgrace to the Polish Nation dressing like that. Additionally,
he objected that I was shielding myself from the intense sun by a black
umbrella. I anticipated intense sun in Hungary and therefore I purchased an umbrella,
but in socialist Poland all umbrellas were black and intended to use in the
rain, not in the sun. I had little in common with these Polish people, but I
overheard what they discussed with other Poles conservatively dressed,
obviously not in pajamas. As they were passing through Czechoslovakia on their
way to Hungary they noticed attractive East German photo cameras, mostly copies
of West German cameras made by Leica and Zeiss. They wanted to purchase them
but were short of Czechoslovakian money (crowns). They speculated to exchange
Hungarian currency into Czechoslovakian and on the way back buy these desirable
cameras. I had to laugh as I had a similar idea a few days before, and every
morning I went by car traveling from one campground to the next looking for
Czech tourists. I offered an attractive
rate to purchase Hungarian forints in exchange for crowns. I was so successful
that I cleaned out a whole neighborhood of Balaton Lake from Czechoslovakian
crowns. Next day I could only laugh when my neighbors failed in their
“conspiracy” to acquire forints, as there were none available in our camping
neighborhood.
When traveling back to Poland, after nearly two months of
vacation, I was looking for merchandise that would be desirable, but not
available in Poland. I excluded cameras, but I noticed one kind of garment,
velour shirts that were not available in Poland. We purchased 20 such shirts
for resale in Poland. We waited until 4 am to cross the border to be sure that
the customs officers were sleepy and would let us through without searching our
belongings. It was our mistake. The customs officers were sleepy, but also
angry and forced us to unload all of our belongings, including the large jar of
Polish pickled cucumbers. They were so concentrated on these cucumbers that
they didn’t pay any attention to the 20 velour shirts that we had unpacked from
their factory wrappings, removed the manufacturer’s labels and mingled with our
other garments.
After arriving in Lodz my first steps were to the consignment
shop, known in Poland under name of “komis,” the only place where socialist
citizens could place personal effects for sale. The komis shop took 15%
commission from such transactions. I was
sure that the velour shirts would be a big hit with the Poles. Unfortunately, I
was wrong. After two weeks, none of my shirts had sold. I asked the manager of the shop why there
wasn’t any interest in my merchandise? He told me that my shirts looked like
they were made in Czechoslovakia, and you couldn’t expect anything good to come
from another socialist country. I took the shirts back and was ready to wear
them myself, but an idea struck me that I should capitalize on the snobbery of
Polish people and convert these shirts into products of Sweden, a country
admired for its production of Volvo cars.
For Swedish conversion I only needed 20 labels that said
“Made in Sweden.” Apparently, Zofia in her penchant for collecting, brought
from Sweden a number of labels from Swedish rye crackers, manufactured by Wasa
Bread. Beside the name of the bakery, the precious phrase “Made in Sweden” was
distinctively printed. Additionally, these labels were self-adhesive,
triangular and fit perfectly on the shirts.
I stuck the labels on the shirts and put them back for resale in the komis
shop. I also doubled the price, which was more appropriate for the West
European manufacture. The shirts sold within a week. The profit from the shirt
sales paid for two months of my vacation plus a healthy profit.
Uppsala: The third and last approach to freedom
At the beginning of 1966 when I arrived again
to Uppsala on the invitation of Dr. Jan Eksted, I was already weary from difficulties
in obtaining a passport for foreign travel. After each visit to Sweden I was
interviewed by the Secret Police and as I now know from the documents obtained
under the freedom of information act, they recently had a plan to enlist me as
a spy for them. From the other side I
befriended Mr. Kaminski who was a secretary to Mr. Wycech, the Polish Parliament
Speaker. Mr. Kaminski facilitated formalities needed for my passport, and I was
sure that in the future I would have an “open gate” for my foreign travels. In the
meantime my girlfriend Zofia stayed in Poland, finishing her medical degree and
Mr. Kaminski promised her a passport to join me in Sweden. Later, after she
arrived in Uppsala we started talking about the possibility of permanently staying
in Sweden. In the meantime I finalized my application to work at the Institute
of Arctic Biology in Fairbanks, Alaska and applied to the Polish consulate for an
extension of validity of my passport to all countries. The passport that was
issued to me for traveling to Sweden was valid only for travels in Europe.
After a month of waiting I received a letter
from the Polish Consulate in Stockholm stating that “country authorities” had refused
my application and the Polish Consulate was instructed to issue me and Zofia
Krolikowska one piece of paper, “a blanket permission,” for our immediate
return to Poland. It crushed my expectations that my support from the United
Peasant Party, namely Mr. Kaminski, was sufficient to overcome other forces firmly
planted against me. Now, studying the documents from the Polish Secret Service
I realized that they were more powerful than I thought, and they concluded
(correctly) that I was short on “loyalty” toward them. When I made a telephone
call to the Polish Consulate in Sweden asking for an explanation as to why my
application for travel, for one year, to the U.S. was rejected, the consulate
told me that apparently my justification was “too short.”
I understood “too short” to mean too short in my commitments to the
Secret Police or Polish Communist foreign intelligence. At that moment I knew that the return gate to
Poland was shut and we would have to make our living in the west. To some
extent, the rejection letter from the Polish Consulate made my decision for me.
I had no hesitation in making my decision to return to my home country or stay
in the west. I should be grateful to
them for their decision. I chose the west.
Unemployment in Uppsala
Right
after I received a negative response about the validity of my Polish passport,
a second unexpected event occurred. My boss, Dr. Jan Eksted did not receive an
extension of the grant which was financing his research and my presence in his laboratory.
I was told that I was free to come and build whatever I liked, but I would no
longer be on the payroll at the Institute of Pharmacology where I worked. Dr.
Eksted was trying to make it easier for me and he introduced me to the local
pharmaceutical company Pharmacia AB, which was later purchased by Johnson and
Johnson and recently by the conglomerate Pfizer Corp. At Pharmacia AB I worked
as a freelance designer who helped researchers in the physiological laboratory
to build instruments that they couldn’t purchase on the open market. It was at
Pharmacia AB that I met Dr. Richter, a German psycho-pharmacologist who was
studying the effects of amphetamines on laboratory animals. He told me that he
needed an instrument to selectively measure the movements of rats under the
influence of amphetamines, while they were in close proximity to a group of
other rats which were not under any treatment. Apparently it was observed, also
in human application, that the amphetamine’s effect was increased when an
individual was placed in a social situation. Conversely, individual rats and
humans exposed to amphetamines and left alone in a dark cage or room with no
external stimulants tolerated higher doses of amphetamines without harmful
effects.
I thought that a
Q-meter might be the answer to his problem.
Andrzej Jellonek my professor at Polytechnic in Wroclaw was obsessed
with these instruments. Q-meters were designed to measure electrical losses of
coils and capacitors in a resonant circuit. My idea was to position under the
floor of the animal cage six coils connected in a series and tuned to a high
frequency resonance. The animals injected
with amphetamines had a platinum wire loop implanted. When the affected animals
came close to the coil under the cage floor the wire loop implanted under their
skin loaded the resonant circuit creating a voltage change which then
registered as an event. The animals without implanted coils also triggered a
voltage change in the resonant circuit, but of much lower amplitude. Using a two
level discriminator I was able to distinguish the movements of the animals
marked with a platinum loop from the animals without a loop. My invention
worked well and became useful in Dr. Richter’s research.
In the mean time I also received an order to
build an instrument to measure the blood flow through the heart of a newborn
baby. This order was from the department of pediatrics at Uppsala University
Hospital. For this application I used a method of thermo-dilution, which I
learned from another researcher at Pharmacia AB Company. He was from
Czechoslovakia and his name was Karl Pavek. He worked together with another
researcher, Karl Arfors. They pioneered this technique in dogs, but I made it
more convenient to use in children. I built the only two such instruments for cardiac
output measurements, one for Uppsala University and a second for Karolinska
Institute in Stockholm. Two years later,
in Columbus, Ohio I started another company, Columbus Instruments, and I
improved on this cardiac output computer which in addition to the Selective
Animal Activity became the mainstay of my American business.
In Uppsala I was paid for both inventions but
I couldn’t make a living this way. I needed to market them and manufacture in
some quantity. I decided to start a new, one person company which I named
Uppsala Instruments. So as not to deplete my meager resources I decided to
concentrate on one product, namely the Selective Activity Meters for measuring
animal locomotion. Since I was living in
the student dormitory, I could not list my dorm address for my company. It just
so happened that my friend, from the same electronic department, Teoman
Madakbas was returning to Turkey and he was vacating a post office box which he
and another Jewish fellow from England were renting at a nearby Post Office.
They used this box to receive orders (I think) for drug paraphernalia in the form
of glass blown water pipes. Maybe these were used for smoking marijuana.
Apparently, their business was not prosperous and Teoman decided to return to
Istanbul, where he started an import-export company. A few years later he was
selling my American made products in Turkey. I had to advertise my new, one person company
with an address of PO Box 12007. Number 12 was the number of the Post Office in
Uppsala and the number 007 was the actual box number within this particular
post office. It just so happened that it was synonymous with the name of the well-known
British agent, James Bond 007, starring in a number of movies.
The first commercial
brochure
To sell my Selective Activity Meters on the
wider market, I desperately needed a brochure describing its unique features. I
had no money to print one or even to design one. I decided to write it myself. I
still had a key to the Institute of Physics and they had a duplicating machine
in their basement. It was occasionally used by the faculty to duplicate machine
typed scripts. Please remember it was before Xerox duplicating machines became
widely used. This duplicating machine used an aluminum sheet as a master
wrapped around a large drum. I typed a description of my Selective Meter on the
three aluminum sheets. The cover page I designed myself with a hand drawn
picture of a rat standing on the mechanical counter. Using the duplicating
machine at night when nobody could observe my illegal activity I made 300
brochures.
When I showed a copy of it to my American
friend, Sven Johnson, he immediately criticized it for a mistake in the title.
On my brochure the title was: Selectiv
Activity Meter. “Where is the ‘e’ in the word Selective,” asked Sven. Surely
I omitted the “e” because in my understanding of the English language, there
was no “e.” I didn’t hear an “e.” “Because it is a silent ‘e,’” Sven insisted. I
had no choice but to agree with Sven Johnson, especially after consulting an
English dictionary. I could not scrap all 300 brochures, as it would ruin me
completely.
Then I was struck with an ingenious idea. If I corrected
these brochures by hand in black ink, it would be too obvious that I had made
an orthographical error. Who would pay several thousand dollars for an
instrument with such a glaring orthographical error? I decided to make it in red ink and shape the
“e” like a mouse with a long swirling tail. Instantly the brochure turned into a
color brochure with a touch of humor. Customers could not suspect that such a
sharp brochure was the result of my ignorance of the English language. I still have the first copy of this brochure.
I framed it and placed at the entrance of my Columbus Instruments. It
symbolizes the primitive and desperate beginnings of my now successful
enterprise.
|
Uppsala Instruments first
“commercial” brochure
|
Uppsala
Instruments: Manufacturing and marketing
Now it was time to manufacture my invention
en masse if I received orders. Besides having the company name and address, I
needed manufacturing facilities. For this I contracted my colleagues from the
Department of Electronics who later became professors there. After hours in the
Institute of Physics they assembled Selective Activity Meters from components I
delivered to them. In the meantime,
Zofia’s mother arrived with her second daughter Wanda as her caretaker. Zofia’s
mother was sick with cancer and Uppsala’s university hospital allowed her to
come for treatment. Surprisingly, the Communist
authorities in Poland allowed her to travel to Sweden. In such an expanded
family situation we could no longer live in the student dorm, instead we rented
a two bedroom apartment for the handicap where all four of us lived. Zofia’s
mother helped to address envelopes to the European pharmaceutical companies
which were listed in a book published by Merck Pharmaceutical. In a short time
I started receiving orders from renowned pharmaceutical companies for my animal
activity meters. Orders were addressed to the Post Office Box 12007. In return
I sent them finished instruments using the post office parcel system. I got
paid by checks which were addressed to Uppsala Instruments, a company which was
not registered and practically unknown to anybody. To my surprise local banks
cashed these checks with no questions asked. It lasted for a while, but it made
me worry that one day I would get into trouble with the tax authorities or the
bank would require proper company authorization.
To make things legal I went to the county
office, asking them if I could register a company with the name of Uppsala
Instruments. I was told that this was not possible if I was not a Swedish
citizen. I had to have a board of directors with at least one Swedish member. I was hardly able to make a living for
myself. How I could share my meager
profits with another person just to satisfy government regulations? I went back
home and decided to run Uppsala Instruments “illegally.” Eventually, if business had increased, the
tax authorities would have found out about my operation. Fortunately next year,
in the spring of 1968, I left for the U.S. and that problem ceased to exist.
In the spring of 1968 I was approached by the
U.S. Embassy in Stockholm pressing me for a decision to come to the U.S.
Apparently, the University of Alaska was sending letters demanding an expedited
decision on my visa application. In the meantime the University of Alaska
suggested that instead applying for a visitor’s visa I should apply for a permanent
resident visa, which would alleviate the complexity of future extensions. As we
had already said goodbye to our Polish passports, I had no objections to
applying for immigrant status in the U.S. The only problem was my booming
business in Uppsala Instruments and I didn’t know what to do with it when I
departed to the U.S. There was also the small, last minute problem of
determining whether or not I belonged to a Communist organization.
Am I a Communist, or not?
One day I received a call from the U.S.
Embassy in Stockholm to clarify some of my statements on the permanent resident
application. When I faced the council, they showed me my statement, where I
answered, “Yes,” to the question: have
you ever belonged to a Communist organization?
What I meant by my affirmative answer was that I belonged to ZMP (Polish
Youth Association) which to me was a Communist organization, but not a Communist
party. In fact, I was kicked out of this organization twice in high school and
nearly once in college for telling anti-Communist jokes, dancing the boogie-woogie
and trying to prove that Lenin’s statement: “Communism equals electricity plus
government by the party,” could be rewritten according to algebraic rules, as:
“electricity equals Communism minus the party.”
I told the U.S. council, that if I did not belong to ZMP, I probably
would not have been able to attend Polytechnic and without a degree I would be
useless to the Americans. The council agreed and asked me to correct my visa
application with a statement that I was forced to join ZMP, which was only
partly true. I was forced by
circumstances, but nobody held a gun to my head. One way or another I received permanent
resident status in the U.S. while I was still in Sweden. My wife would also be
extended permanent resident status.
Given this information, I was left with no choice but to marry Zofia.
Closing Uppsala Instruments
During the translation of some official
documents we encountered a Polish man, who served as an official translator for
the county government in Uppsala. He asked me what I did and I explained to him
that I had a business-Uppsala Instruments that I would have to abandon when I
immigrated to the U.S. He mentioned that
his brother-in-law, Mr. Gunar Wahlgren was a well-known international
businessman in Sweden and Singapore and he might be interested in some business
arrangements with me to assure the continuity of the manufacture of my
Selective Activity Measurements. He arranged for me to meet with Mr. Gunar
Wahlgren who presented himself as an honorary consult of Singapore in
Sweden. He had a small factory of
electrical capacitors in Stockholm and a second one in Singapore. His factories
were named Farad. His business in capacitor manufacturing was winding down due
to automation because his Stockholm and Singapore operations included manual
labor.
He jumped on the idea of taking over my
Selective Activity Meters and asked me to write up an agreement concerning
mutual cooperation. In this agreement, which I still have, I dictated that his
company, Farad AB would share profits from the manufacture of the Selective
Activity Meters by ratio of 50/50 and that the agreement was valid for one year
with the possibility of an extension if it was mutually agreeable. Naively, I
thought that if I could make a living manufacturing the activity meters, then
surely Farad AB would be able to net an even higher profit. This was my basic
mistake. The only positive thing in my contract was its limitation of time. It
was valid for one year. After I arrived in the U.S., I asked Mr. Wahlgren about
the profits from making and selling the animal activity meters. He told me that
his corporation profits were always close to zero and if the company made any
profit he paid himself a higher salary or bonus. I could not blame Mr. Wahlgren
for the defective contract since I was the one who had written it. Mr. Wahlgren
did not turn my attention to my mistake, but forgot that I held a dominant
factor in this relation. I had an expertise in making this instrument better
while he had no experienced instrumentation engineers in his company. In due
time, within a year I started manufacturing these instruments in the U.S. and pushed
Farad AB out of the U.S. market.
In time I learned more about Mr. Wahlgren’s
character. It happened when the U.S. Department of Commerce organized an
exhibit in Stockholm for American-made medical equipment and my company,
Columbus Instruments, was invited to participate. Suddenly I got a message from
the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, that I may be arrested while in Sweden.
Apparently, they were told that I stole the design for the Animal Activity
Meters from Mr. Wahlgren and his company Farad AB. I immediately asked the Swedish consulate in
Chicago to clarify if I was the subject of a police investigation in Sweden.
Within a week they told me that they knew nothing about the possibility of
arrest and I should not consider it valid. When I went to Stockholm with
Columbus Instruments equipment nothing happened and no one approached me. When
I went to the U.S. Embassy to ask for clarification, I was told by the U.S.
Consul that Mr. Gunar Wahlgren, introducing himself as an Honorary Consul of
Singapore, came to the U.S. Embassy informing them of my criminal record.
Apparently, he was afraid that similarly looking equipment would undermine his
efforts to sell my designs to a larger Swedish manufacturer of laboratory
equipment LKB. Apparently he succeeded, because 20 years later I received a
letter from LKB asking me if I was interested in purchasing my own design. The latest Swedish manufacturer, LKB, was no
longer interested in this product. I politely refused, explaining that I was no
longer interested in purchasing my own, now obsolete design.
Goodbye
Sweden, salute to America
To obtain an American immigration status for
Zofia we had to be married. There was not much enthusiasm from Zofia to this
end, in spite of the fact that we lived together for a number of years. Maybe
she was waiting for a better offer, which never materialized. For me, going to
the distant country by myself was rather scary and having Zofia as a companion
provided a degree of comfort. We got married in a civil ceremony with my friend
Professor Henryk Ryzko and his wife Asa Ivarson-Ryzko as our witnesses. I remember
that right up to the last moment Zofia was not sure if she would go through
with the wedding, therefore we arrived at city hall an hour late.
After completing the defective contract with
Mr. Wahlgren we were ready to leave for the United States. In the months before
our departure it occurred to me that maybe I could still receive my Ph.D. from
Uppsala University. I was thinking that it could be beneficial for me in the U.S.
I was still listed at the university as a doctoral student, but neglected to
complete any required courses or written dissertations. I no longer worked at the Institute of Physics
or at the Institute of Pharmacology either. Nevertheless, I called Professor
Per Arno Tove, my promoter at the Institute of Physics, and announced that I
was going to the United States and he had one last chance to grant me a Ph.D. I must say, that Professor Tove was not happy
with my approach and he voiced his dissatisfaction freely. Regardless, he had to agree that I was better
than a number of other Ph.D. students in his department and I had a superior
number of publications together with him, where he participated mostly in the
capacity of an English language editor.
Professor Tove and I had also patented a Cardio Tachometer together that
I later sold to the Swedish company Elema.
Professor Tove received 50% of the royalties from this transaction. His participation in this invention was
negligible.
In April 1968 we left the Stockholm Airport,
Arlanda to travel to Anchorage, Alaska on board an SAS Jetliner, Boeing 707
flying over the North Pole. At the last moment a Swedish–Jewish friend Gustav
Levy Hunaberg—appeared at the airport to say goodbye to us. He had a gift for
me. It was a small red book of Chairman Mao’s thoughts translated to English.
I’m not sure if it was a joke or somebody told him to select such a
provocative, Communist gift. I did not take it to the U.S. and disposed of it
in the garbage basket once I passed the passport control. As we flew over the
North Pole I saw this region as nothing more than a pile of ice plates,
otherwise nothing spectacular. Later flights over the North Pole were suspended
because of radiation in the so-called Van Allen band. When we landed in
Anchorage we had to wait a few hours for a small commuter flight to Fairbanks,
which is located in the center of Alaska. Our visit was just a few years after a
devastating earth quake in Alaska, and photographs of the damage were on
display at the airport. We came to the U.S.
at the peak of the Vietnam War with American soldiers flying back and forth to
Vietnam via Japan. After refueling, our Swedish plane was destined to go to
Tokyo.
Our flight to Fairbanks was on a small plane flown
by Air Alaska, which to my surprise is still functioning today. After arriving
in Fairbanks, right in the middle of Alaska’s winter, we were relocated to a
room in a student dormitory. It was probably built by the U.S. Army with a
number of rooms along the long corridor, at the end of which there was a
restroom. Apparently we had to look for an apartment ourselves. To our
surprise, the university charged us $70 per night to use the frugal
accommodations at the student dormitory. I was surprised by the simplicity of the
accommodations and the exorbitant price. Apparently I was spoiled after living
for a few years in Sweden. When I inquired about the possibility of an
apartment I was told that it was being rebuilt and might be ready in a month or
two. It was located in the basement. It reminded me my first job and “university
guest room” at Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland. The first
two nights we were recovering from a time change of 11 hours between Uppsala
and Anchorage. After that, I went to the university to get lunch at the student
cafeteria. To my surprise, my rather modest lunch cost a substantial amount of
money. When multiplied by 30 days it exceeded my monthly take home income. As
an assistant professor I was paid $1000 per month, but the university deducted
$300 for federal taxes. For $700 we could not afford to eat in the student
cafeteria. Lunch alone would consume more than my entire pay.
In addition, the vague promise of a job for
Zofia in a local hospital never materialized. In fact, when visiting one doctor
working there, he told her that he was of the opinion that women should not
work because their menstrual periods took too much valuable time away from
their working hours. After that I went to the director of the Institute of
Arctic Biology, Dr. Morrisson and explained to him, that I was not able to live
with a wife for such a meager salary.
Professor Morrisson agreed with me that things were expensive in Alaska,
and was disappointed that I did not investigate this situation before I
arrived. He also gave me the advice, to purchase salami in a local store and
make myself sandwiches which would be much cheaper than the “luxurious” lunch
in the students’ cafeteria. He also said
that in his institute there were some other scientists and full professors who
earned a salary similar to mine and they didn’t complain. I knew then that I
couldn’t stay in Alaska and that it was high time to seek better pastures,
maybe somewhere on mainland America, below the Canadian frontier. Additionally, I became frightened and consumed
with the looming Vietnam War, with the TV showing body bags with dead soldiers
flown from Vietnam to the U.S. every day. I think the American administration learned
its lesson and has not shown remnants of U.S. troops returning from Iraq or
Afghanistan. Before we returned to Sweden, I wanted to see more of the U.S. In the
meantime, I learned that small, provincial airlines (like Ozark Air and a few
similar) were lacking passengers and offered European tourists bargain prices for
airline tickets on any of their airlines valid for two weeks. We could travel
wherever we wanted on such airlines within a two week window. We took full
advantage of this and left Fairbanks for good. I returned there 40 years later
as a tourist—just for a day, to see if much had changed. In the meantime the
same Institute of Arctic Biology purchased some of my instruments to measure the
respiration of bacteria cultures and algae.
I remember that some months later the Institute of Arctic Biology sent
me a bill for our stay in the student dorm. It was more than $1000. I declined
to pay this bill ever.
On our tour of the U.S. we went first to
Seattle, then to Salt Lake City and Philadelphia. At the Philadelphia airport I
was nearly shot by a policeman, who suspected us of stealing a car in the parking
lot. We wandered out into the parking lot to look for the car we had rented. I sat behind the wheel and suddenly two
policemen appeared with the stern demand, “Driver’s license.” I reached into my
side pocket and the policemen jumped and drew their pistols. I was really surprised because my intention
was to show to them my passport and international driver’s license. I did not
know at the time, that in the U.S., when approached by the police and sitting
in a car, one has to keep his hands on the steering wheel and not reach into
his pockets. Fortunately, the policeman did not fire leaving me alive today to
tell this story. In a Boston hotel we
observed as riots erupted after Marin Luther King was shot. We could not visit
the city at that time. It was not safe.
Shortly after our two week airline tickets expired and we had to make a
decision about what to do next. We still had the option of returning to Sweden,
but my high school friend, Reniek Odulinski who had come to Canada a year
before, wrote to me that if I found myself in a tough spot I could come and
stay with him. Canada was a wonderful place where one could eat ice cream with
a tablespoon. Reniek knew a lot about good nutrition. Yet in Wroclaw Poland, he
developed a famous diet for people with limited financial means. It consisted of chicken broth and sweet cream
pastries. It provided the highest number of calories per dollar. Eating such a diet,
he was able to keep up with the demands of several ladies who admired his
physique.
Canadian adventure
We purchased tickets for a Grey Hound bus to
Montreal where Reniek lived and left New York toward Canada. I assumed that
visas were not needed for traveling between the U.S. and Canada. When we
arrived at the border we were asked to show our passports. At the time we had
Swedish Traveling Documents, but our Green Cards indicating permanent residence
in the U.S. had not arrived yet. Canadian immigration officers asked us about
our professions, and learning that I was an electronic engineer and Zofia was a
physician issued visas to us at the border allowing us to stay and work in
Canada. It was different times then. In spite of Communist tension, people’s movements
and immigration formalities were much more relaxed.
In Montreal Reniek lived in a three bedroom
apartment with his Polish-French wife and his two-year-old son, Bogdan. He
married his wife, Daniele, in France where he came to the conclusion that life
there at the border with Germany in the Alsace region had no present and even
less future. I remember visiting him once when traveling in a Volkswagen from
Sweden to England. Daniele was born in France to Polish parents. She went to a Polish
high school in Paris and spoke Polish as well as she spoke French. Shortly thereafter I tried to find a job as a
biomedical engineer in several Montreal hospitals, but was told that there was
no place for an Englishman. People who did not speak French were considered
English.
Looking back on my stay in Montreal, I must
say that I met one interesting person who became my longtime friend. His name
was Engineer Henryk Toczylowski and he worked for a Polish-run company in
Montreal, making some electronic naval electronics. Apparently during WWII a
group of Polish engineers were compiling research on British naval electronics
and then immigrated to Canada. Unfortunately my expertise in biomedical
engineering did not match their needs.
After a month or so of staying with Reniek, I decided to move to Ottawa,
Ontario where people speaking English were more welcomed. In Ottawa I got a job
at a small company, Applicon Inc. At this company I was the only full-time
engineer. Two of this company’s principals were working in a larger computer
manufacturing company, and were hoping that their startup would eventually make
money. In the meantime they got a contract for a strange, innovative device
from the Department of Psychology of Ottawa University. One of the researchers
there, Dr. Ertel, invented an instrument measuring IQ, an indicator of
intelligence. He needed a prototype to be made and I was the one to whom this
job was assigned. His IQ Tester was supposed to measure intelligence by
measuring the correlation between the left and right hemispheres of the brain.
He was convinced by some U.S. “investors” that with the right promotion, this
instrument could be sold to schools.
This was a crazy idea, because measuring IQ
by instrument in schools has many political connotations, not to mention legal.
I built part of this equipment but I couldn’t finish the entire project because
shortly thereafter I left for Columbus, Ohio. Interestingly, three years later,
when I was already in Columbus running Columbus Instruments, Dr. Ertel showed
up and asked if I was still interested in building his invention. In the meantime
he had lost his job at the university and was driving a taxi for a living. I
felt sorry for him, but his invention was not in my business plans. I
concentrated on two products which did not have any political implications. In the end, my decision proved to be the right
one.
From Canada back to the U.S.
One day I read in an Ottawa newspaper that a
businessman from the States was visiting Ottawa looking for engineers who would
like to work on projects related to measuring moisture in paper. Canada was
always a place where paper was made due to the large forests and abundance of
wood as a prime material for the paper making industry. A number of paper mills
are still located there. What this American businessman was looking for were
service engineers for equipment made in Columbus, Ohio. I responded to this
advertisement and met the man who was a comptroller of Brun Sensors Systems in
Columbus, Ohio. After explaining to him my previous experience with measuring
moisture in grain, he offered me a trip to Columbus to talk to the president of
the company Dr. Brunton. I took advantage of his offer and after visiting
Columbus was offered a job as an R&D engineer with at the time a very high
salary of $15,000 per year, which now in 2012 adjusted for inflation would
amount to $97,000. My salary was much better than what I was offered in
Fairbanks, Alaska and prices in Columbus, Ohio were 50% or lower. I felt like a
king. I resigned from my job at Applicon Corp. and flew with Zofia to Columbus,
Ohio.
First days
in Columbus, Ohio
After purchasing two tickets and paying one
month’s rent for an “efficiency apartment” (meaning one room) at North Star Rd.
I was left with $200. I had no car, so groceries I had to carry about a mile
from the Kroger store. On the second day of my job at Brun Sensor Systems I was
called to the office of Dr. Mario Overhoff, the Research and Development
Director. He was straight forward with me. He started his friendly conversation
with a statement:”You must know that I can fire you if I feel like it.” I was
flabbergasted, as I had done nothing wrong yet. In fact, I had no chance to do
anything right, either. Having in mind my meager capital of $200 I could not be
boisterous. I just said, “Yes sir.” In
this moment, I realized that I could not work for this firm and this man for
long.
I do not remember what was said after that
statement in our conversation but, I went to the R&D Department to
contemplate my future. The R&D Department was adjacent to the main building
on West 3rd Ave, and formally constituted a large truck garage. As
such, it had no windows, but it did have a large garage door for trucks to get
in and out. Summer in Columbus, Ohio can
be unbearably hot but we could open the garage door. The disadvantage was that
the swirls of dust lifted by the wind entered the R&D room, choking us. The
first lesson I learned from working for Brun Sensor Systems was that if you do
not provide air-conditioning for your employees, they cannot work, more specifically,
they cannot think. I was paid well, but this money was hardly worth it as I was
suffering from heat exposure.
I also learned something about the company
itself. Brun Sensor Systems was a relatively new company, probably three or
four years old when I was hired and was manufacturing moisture meters for paper
web. This moisture meters were sold to paper mills which had different
requirements as to the dimensions of instruments which had be installed and
operate on line. The concept of a moisture
meter was not developed by the employees of Brun Sensor Systems. It was
developed somewhere in California, and was based on infrared light absorption
by the water. Unfortunately, it was still in the prototype stage and Brun
Sensor Systems should have never put it into production before removing all the
errors associated with its operation with different kinds of papers. The head
and founder of the company, Dr. Brunton, worked previously for a much larger company
also located in Columbus—Industrial Nucleonic. After he received some financial
backing, he quit his job with Industrial Nucleonic and started Brun Sensor
Systems.
When working there I also learned the second
principle of running my own business, (the air conditioning was the first). The second lesson was not to put an instrument
on the market before all the bugs are removed from the prototype. The third
principle which was violated by Brun Sensor Systems was not to sell instruments
troubled with errors on a lease basis. This last lesson finally caused Brun Sensor
to go bankrupt when the instruments made for specific paper mills were returned
to the company and the leases were cancelled.
Fortunately, I was fired from the company before it went belly up. Interestingly, two years after I already
started my own company, Columbus Instruments, I had my small satisfaction with
Dr. Overhoff. One day while eating lunch in the drug store (at that time you
still could get hamburgers, coffee and fried eggs in drugstores) the visitor sitting
next to me was Dr. Overhoff. He told me that he was fired by Brun Sensor
Systems and now looking for a job. He asked me if I had anything for him to do.
I told him that the only job I had was to solder components to printed circuit
boards and he told me that he would take it in a moment. Obviously, I couldn’t
hire him remembering his attitude toward me at my first job at Brun Sensor
Systems.
Columbus
Instruments: First attempt
After my confrontation with the head of
R&D, Dr. Mario Overhoff, I came to the conclusion that my job at Brun
Sensor Systems could only be temporary. I had to look for alternatives. It occurred
to me that I could resurrect my abandoned Swedish company, Uppsala Instruments. The American version should be called
Columbus Instruments. As in Uppsala, Sweden I had no location for such a company,
therefore I decided to rely on the telephone answering service located across
the street from my employer, Brun Sensor Systems. I also decided to print attractive
brochures and use pictures of instruments I made in Uppsala. In the mean timer
Mr. Wahlgren sent me his brochure for the Selective Activity Meter. His brochure used a decent picture of the instrument
so I used this picture in my brochure as well. Originally I intended to sell
Farad AB’s Selective Activity Meters in the U.S. A whole 2,000 brochures were
printed by a small, one-man printing shop and I sent these brochures to universities
and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and Canada. Unfortunately I did not
receive any interest and no calls to my telephone answering service. I realized
that I could not rely on the telephone answering service and would have to have
a real person, who would answer the telephone during working hours. Also the
address could not be a post office box. What worked in Sweden did not work in the
U.S.
Columbus Instruments: Second attempt
One day reading the local paper, The Columbus
Dispatch, I read an article about local company, Worldwide Development
Corporation which just started its operation nearby at the Chesapeake Ave. The
article mentioned that this company’s primary products were Hyperbaric Chambers
but they also planned to expand into the medical field. As Chesapeake Ave was walking
distance from my apartment I decided to take a walk and talk to them about my
instruments. Maybe I could find partners with a working telephone and address.
I was received by two gentlemen, Mr. Dan Beck, vice president and Mr. Jack Erwin,
company president. They both worked previously for Battelle Memorial Institute
in Columbus, designing hyperbaric chambers, but quit their jobs and started their
own company offering the same services as their previous employer. In my
opinion they were good engineers and designers, but had very little experience
in business, which led them into bankruptcy two years later. When I appeared I
apparently made a good impression on them and they asked me to write a proposed
contract under which we can cooperate.
I went home and wrote a contract in which I
listed following conditions:
1. I will form a division within Worldwide
Corporation called, Columbus Instruments which will manufacture instruments of
my own design, mostly Selective Activity Meters and Cardiac Output Computers
2. I will work for this division getting paid
$15 per hour
3. I will get 5% royalty from each instrument
sold by Columbus Instruments
4. Worldwide Development Corporation will invest
in manufacturing facilities and additional technical help
5. If in the future Columbus Instruments will
prove to be financially sound it will be separated from the mother corporation
and I will have a position of a president with 50% stock ownership
6. In the case that our relations “sour,” both
parties can separate without legal entanglements. Each party will have equal
rights to manufacture the same equipment without paying each other any
licensing fees.
With
all the points valid, the most important was point No. 6. This I will describe later.
In
the mean time I was working for Brun Sensor Systems and in the evenings putting
in an additional six to eight hours building instruments for Columbus
Instruments, Division of Worldwide Corporation. In fact the first instrument I
sold was my Animal Activity Meter to the University of Bristol, England. In the
meantime my relation with Mr. Walhgren of Farad AB in Sweden soured. When
inquiring about profits made by Farad AB from selling instruments which I
licensed to them, Mr. Wahlgren replied that these were “zero.” He explained to me that his
corporation, Farad AB never made any profit. Whenever his corporation made any
profit Mr. Wahgren paid himself a higher salary or premium. As my agreement was
with Farad AB not with M. Gunar Wahlgren, I had no claim to profits. It was my
mistake as it was me who wrote the contract. I was naïve and inexperienced in
this respect. But in my contract with Farad AB there was a remedial point. It
was valid only for one year and required an extension, to which I did not
agree. Also Mr. Wahlgren forgot that I had a knowledge which his company was
lucking. I could make instruments better while he had no engineering staff in
his company to improve on my original designs. The terms of our agreement
enabled me to manufacture Selective Activity Meters in the U.S. and take over
the market for this equipment. The second instrument which I was building in my
new company, was a cardiac output computer based on thermo dilution and dye
dilution principles.
Mr. Maurice, an investor
The Worldwide Corporation was running short
of cash. They did not sell the hyperbaric chambers to the US Navy as
they had expected. These chambers allowed deep sea divers to rest and sleep
in the depths of the ocean, without being brought back to the surface. Bringing
divers to the surface took a long time, as rapid pressure changes would cause
bubbles in their blood, leading to stroke and death.
Unfortunately, Worldwide Corporation was
undercapitalized and the U.S. Navy would not risk investment into equipment
which could not be serviced after delivery.
My immediate bosses, Mr. Dan Beck and Jack Irvin, got the idea to
attract outside investors who would put more money into Columbus Instruments.
This was Mr. Maurice, known in Columbus as a stock broker. They brought him in
to talk to me in person. When I met Mr. Maurice, he looked me straight in the
eye and said “I have to tell you I am a Jew.” I did not know what to say. Then he repeated,
“I am a Jew and if you are an anti-Semite, we cannot work together” At the end
Mr. Maurice did not invest any money into Columbus Instruments Division of
Worldwide Corporation. It was the first time I met somebody who had fixed,
preconceived, negative ideas about Poles. Apparently Mr. Maurice was not aware
that my mentor and protector, the one who offered me my first job at
Polytechnic in Wroclaw, Poland, was Prof. Stefan Bincer, of Jewish descent; and
my close friend was Dr. Stefan Ehrlich, whose memories from Lwow (Lviv) ghetto I
mention in this book. Fortunately, as time went by, I could not recall any more
biased attitudes toward me in the U.S. To the contrary, over last forty years at Columbus Instruments, we’ve had a wide
variety of people with different religious and racial backgrounds working
harmoniously, without conflict, with me or with their coworkers.
Mr. Wilburn Towns
Soon I received help from some technicians hired by Mr. Dan Beck, vice
president of WDC. One of them was Mr. Wilburn Towns and later his son, Mark who
was studying electronics in local college.
As time went by
Wilburn Towns became my friend. Therefore he deserves a chapter in this book.
He was one of the older generations of Americans who without former education
made a decent living. He started as a paper delivery boy of a local paper, The Columbus
Dispatch. Later he advanced as the manager of a full group of delivery boys.
When television became popular in the U.S. in the 50’s he learned to repair
television sets which at that time were quite unreliable and required frequent
servicing. He was recommended as an assistant to me by Mr. Beck and he helped assemble
instruments and attended exhibitions with me. He was very handy with mechanical
work and had a fully equipped mechanical shop at home, which became pretty
useful when I started my third version of Columbus Instruments. Later in life
he invested his hard-earned money in the real-estate property around Buckeye
Lake close to Columbus and spent a lot of time flying remote-controlled
aircraft as a hobby. Hi died of a stroke, when Columbus Instruments was already
a strong independent company.
The Finale
of Columbus Instruments, Division of Worldwide Corp.
While
the Columbus Instruments division was developing and sales increased
exponentially, the mother corporation, WDC could not get sales. It was
underfinanced and could not compete with the Battelle Memorial Institute which
built similar hyperbaric chambers. I knew that the situation was critical and
suggested to my principals that the time may be right to separate “my” Columbus
Instruments division from the mother corporation. My proposal was not accepted.
Instead, they suggested that I sign an employment contract for five years. Their proposal was suspicious to me, as
Worldwide Corporation was running short of money. Then one day I was presented
with a final check for my services and an announcement that I was no longer
needed. I went home shocked and worried. In the meantime Zofia and I had become
parents, welcoming our son Richard into the world. Neither Zofia nor I were working at this
moment, because I was previously fired from Brun Sensor Systems and Zofia quit
her job at the University Hospital.
The
next day I went back to WDC on Chesapeake Ave with the idea of marketing,
independently, on a commission basis, instruments which were already built. I
found the company closed with a small card attached to the front door stating
that WDC is now bankrupt and any claims should be referred to Mr. Stip, an
attorney assigned by municipal court as a receiver. I looked through the window
to see what the people who closed the company had done with instruments and
files with documentation. Most important to me were the files with recent
correspondence with potential clients.
I
noticed that the filing cabinets were empty; apparently, the bankruptcy
officials did not consider papers of any value. It was a rainy day, as I
remember. I went to the back of the building where large dumpsters were located
and realized that all my files were dumped into the trash. I climbed inside the
dumpster and collected most of the files including some with pending purchase
orders. Most of the files were wet from the rain. I took them home, to my apartment and spread
them on the carpet to dry. The next day I went to the court-appointed attorney,
Mr. Stip to negotiate the purchase or release of some of the components, which
were needed to build instruments. Mr. Stip, as I remember told me that he could
sell to me the whole hardware left for $50,000 cash. This sum was larger than
what I could afford—I only had $15,000 in my bank account. This was the money I
saved while working two jobs. I should mention that after few months working
for Brun Sensor Systems I was fired, as the company was losing money and was
heading towards bankruptcy in a similar way as WDC. I offered Mr. Stip a deal,
to loan me components from which I would build instruments. I would pay him for
parts in installments. Apparently, such an arrangement was not possible. The
only solution was to use my own “capital” which became “seed money” for a new,
independent Columbus Instruments. Interestingly, two years later, Mr. Stip had
to close the bankruptcy proceedings and sold to me, then already obsolete
parts, for $2,500.
Columbus
Instruments third attempt and final success
Facing
unemployment for the second time in my life, I decided that I would start my
own company without partners and if I failed it would be my own doing. I
already had some experience at Wroclaw Polytechnic, at Uppsala Instruments in
Sweden and now observing my partners in Worldwide Development Corporation. I
decided to capitalize on the failure of WDC.
Besides using discarded documents rescued from the dumpster, I went to
the post office and changed the address of Columbus Instruments, Division of
WDC to my own new post office box with only Columbus Instruments name. I was
sure that any correspondence would be thrown to the waste basket if received by
Mr. Stip or returned to sender with a note “address not known.” I printed a set
of new brochures with my apartment’s address at Presidential Drive. This
apartment had two bedrooms, a living room and a small kitchen. In one bedroom I
located Columbus Instruments. I would have happily used the garage, but this
apartment had no garage. In the second bedroom Richard, at the time already one
year old, was sleeping. Using my own savings I purchased parts to build
Selective Activity Meters. The spring of 1970 was quickly approaching and with
it an exhibition of FASEB (Federation of American Societies of Experimental
Biology) in an Atlantic City. I had no time to finish building entire
instruments, but decided that attractive metal boxes with appropriate labels
could serve as a sufficient exhibit. At first I wasn’t sure how to go about labeling
names and functions on the instrument’s front panel. For this I used “letter
press” stick-on lettering sold in the U.S. but made in Denmark.
|
Outside view of Columbus
Instruments’ first office, complete with air-conditioning.
|
Bill
was an interesting person, who claimed to belong to the Ku-Klux-Klan. He did a
good job assembling equipment, but it was very difficult to like him. He was
obviously troubled that he had to work for a “foreigner,” especially a dumb
“Polack.” He made no attempt to hide his
animosity. One day he walked up to me and said, “Jan, I hate you!” I was flabbergasted and at first didn’t know
how to answer. Then I realized that he was the only technician I had and he did
a good job. So after a moment’s silence, I composed myself and replied: “Bill I
hate you too, but you do a good job and I hate to lose you. Go back to work.”
He worked for me for a few more months until I hired my first secretary,
Marcela Long.
Mrs. Marcela Long
|
Marcella Long, first office
manager
|
In
reality she really needed the money, but I misjudged her needs and intentions,
being fooled by the mink fur coat. Soon she took over all office work including
accounting. My letters to clients became real American, free from spelling
errors. I purchased “Selectric” IBM typewriter for her, which also improved the
look of the letters. Once she joined Columbus Instruments she had a
confrontation with Bill H. who knew that Marcy loved children and had five of
her own. He approached her and said: “Marcy, I hate children. I wish that all
children after birth would be castrated.” This was too much for Marcy who told
him not ever to cross the threshold of her room. Soon Bill H. resigned. After
he left neither of us, especially Marcy, missed him.
Problem with Columbus Instruments’ name
To
make sure that somebody else did not register Columbus Instruments’ name I decided
to register it myself in the State of Ohio. When I submitted the application,
to my surprise, the name was already taken.
I called the “owner” and discovered that he was the one who visited our
company and talked with me at Worldwide Development Corp. He clandestinely made
Columbus Instruments name registration and was hoping to capitalize on it. As I
remember he was trying to make devices for remote starting a car, but could not
find clients or partners to pursue such an enterprise. Now, he had no business under this name,
except that he paid $5 to the Secretary of State of Ohio to keep the
registration valid for five years. When talking with me he offered to sell the
name of Columbus Instruments for $5,000. I refused, as he practically stole it
from me when he knew that I was using it. To circumvent the name problems I
changed the name of the company and registered it as: “Columbus Instruments
Division of International Instruments Company.” I was sold my instruments under
this name for the next few years. I remember a case when some Polish consulate
agent interested in my person, or maybe in connection with my Polish visa
application asked what the International Instruments Company did. I explained
that International Instruments Company was a large conglomerate which had
operations in ship building and mining, but we at Columbus Instruments
manufactured bio-medical instruments and were a relatively small operation.
After six years, just for curiosity I decided to call to the office of the Secretary
of State and inquire if Columbus Instruments was still registered. They replied
that Columbus Instruments was now free to take, providing I would pay the $5
registration fee. Apparently the previous owner forgot to pay the $5 before
five years’ period expired. I
immediately applied and received exclusive rights to the Columbus Instruments
name. Later I incorporated my company as Columbus Instruments International
Corporation under which name it still operates.
Columbus
Instruments new facilities
|
First construction of Columbus
Instruments (1975-76).
|
New engineers and “friends”
Before
moving to new location at 950 N. Hague Ave, I realized that I need another
engineer to help me with new designs. I do not remember how I got in contact
with an Indian student from Ohio State University named Rant. He was already
designing some equipment at the university monitoring the activity of fish. He
proved to be quite capable and designed a number of new instruments for
physiology and behavioral research. The only problem he had was his limited
ability to come up with new ideas. While he was accomplished at building
instruments, he was always coming to me asking, “What next?” I recognized his
limitations, but it did not bother me.
A few years later, one of my Polish
friends, Bogdanski and Rant “defected” from my company and started their own;
they could not grow beyond copying ideas which they brought from their previous
employers, namely Columbus Instruments. About this unpleasant encounter I will
tell later.
After I
moved to the new building I was thinking of bringing some of my friends to the U.S. One of them was an engineer, Bogdanski,
who was studying together with me at Wroclaw Polytechnic. He specialized in
radio receivers and worked in Poland for a research institute devoted to this
subject. In school he was good and I would risk an opinion that he was better than
I. I tried to help him get out of Poland and issued him an invitation to obtain
an H-1 visa to the U.S. intended for high class specialists. I realized that I
could not pay him an American level salary, but his position in Columbus
Instruments was a stepping stone for another job closer to his specialty,
namely radio receivers. Another person who also wanted to come to Columbus was
suggested by my friend in Sweden. He was
the son of a prominent Polish electronics professor from Warsaw Polytechnic. Hi
name was Jankowski. From the very
beginning some kind of animosity developed between the two Polish men and I had
to intervene. Bogdanski intimidated Jankowski and every time Jankowski met him
in the corridor he spat under his feet. Jankowski developed some kind of tremor
when Bodganski was approaching him and it affected his work. I had to reprimand
Bogdanski, because the atmosphere at work became tense. The situation lasted
for a few months and then suddenly changed. Jankowski and Bogdanski started
playing tennis together. I was glad but I could not understand how they could
overcome such mutual disgust.
When
I started my company I had no managerial experience. I was thinking that
company is like a family. Everyone should know everything about the business. Everything was open to everybody. All people
had keys to the building and could work as long as they pleased, provided that
they reported the length of the time they worked. I also neglected to use employment
contracts clearly stipulating that all inventions and developments created by
employees were owned by Columbus Instruments. In fact, the Polish engineers
approached me with a proposition that they could work overtime at the usual
hourly rate. I did not know at the time that such agreements about overtime in the
U.S. are not possible and are not legal for people paid hourly. One day an
inspector from the Department of Labor approached me with accusations that I
did not pay the required 50% more for overtime over 40 hours per week.
Apparently somebody reported this to the Department of Labor. What’s more when
I shared this news with Bogdanski, he was obviously happy with my precarious
situation. He advised me to change the records of working hours. I did not know
at the time that my Polish friends made copies of their hourly records and
delivered them before to the Department of Labor investigators. While not
paying overtime could result in monetary penalty and compensation to the
employees, falsifying the records was a much more serious crime. Fortunately my
attorney negotiated with the inspector payment to the employees the 50%
overtime for the last four years, and I was not accused of any crime of record
falsification.
Shortly
after this incident Rant quit his job and I dismissed Bogdanski because of
obvious displays of disloyalty; however, Jankowski still worked in the company
for another two months. I knew that he was likely a part of the conspiracy to
report me to the Department of Labor. I
was unaware of another, more serious conspiracy to start another competing
company making the same instruments. I allowed Jankowski to continue working in
the company because I knew his father and was not sure of the full extent of his
guilt. After two months Jankowski also left Columbus Instruments, this time voluntarily.
Columbus Instruments was left with no engineers. The people who remained with
me were my devout secretary Marcela Long, and three students from a local
technical school. One of them was Mr. Ken Kober and his wife Barbara. Ken Kober
later became head designer, programmer and is now head of sales department.
Conspiracy
and competition
Within
a short time I noticed that I was losing some orders and customers told me that
there was another company in Columbus, making the same instruments for less.
Its name was XYZ Corporation. It was not difficult to find that the president
of XYZ Corp. was Mr. Rant, originally from India and his partner, my Polish
“friend” Bogdanski. Another surprise was still waiting for me. About a year
later, Mr. Jankowski called me asking for a meeting in a nearby coffee house. I
went there wondering what he had to say. Apparently, he was a part of conspiracy of
three, which consisted of Rant, Bogdanski and himself, (Jankowski). When they worked for Columbus Instruments
they plotted to destroy it and on its debris build their own company with three
partners. Each of them was supposed to have 33% of stock in a new corporation.
When a few months later, Jankowski terminated his employment at Columbus
Instruments and went to see Mr. Rant and Mr. Bogdanski, they reneged on their
promise of partnership. Mr. Bogdanski was even rude and told him to get lost as
he did not have any written proof of any promises. Mr. Jankowski disappointed
with his partners, came to me looking for support. I could not help him. He got
what he deserved. Furthermore, looking later for some old correspondence I
found a letter from my representative in India confirmed by the stamp of the U.S.
Consulate, that our representative, while visiting our company in Columbus, Ohio was approached by Mr.
Jankowski with an offer to build copies
of Cardiac Output Computers in India. He
was ready to deliver all needed (stolen) documentation to facilitate construction.
He also offered to travel to India to help them build these instruments. Our
representative found it dangerous to be involved in industrial espionage and
chose to write a letter to me and pass such information to the U.S. Consular
Offices in India.
What happened to
Mr. Jankowski now, I do not know. I only know that he worked for a number of
years in menial jobs selling and servicing computers in another local computer
company.
What
happened to XYZ Corp? Initially, XYZ Corp. was prosperous on the basis of ideas
which its founders acquired when working at Columbus Instruments. They even
built a nice building allowing for future expansions. As time went by, they did
not grow. Apparently the initial idea of “making the same instruments for less”
did not work. While we at Columbus Instruments hired more talented engineers
and developed more products, XYZ Corp was lagging behind. Selling instruments
for less cut into their profits and they had no money for expansion. When the situation
became bad, a feud developed between the two partners, Mr. Rant and Mr.
Bogdanski. Operation was paralyzed and court appointed attorneys had to mediate
and supervise operations. Finally, the whole XYZ Corp. was put up for sale with
bidding limited to two partners, Mr. Rant and Mr. Bogdanski. The bidding was
initially won by Mr. Rant who could muster more finances to purchase
corporation asserts. Shortly after Mr. Bogdanski sued Mr. Rant for additional
money, claiming that he did not understand the conditions of sale. He asked for
additional money for trade names of instruments and XYZ Corp. This was too much
for Mr. Rant who instead changed the name of company and all trade names of
instruments. This naturally confused customers who were unable to determine who
was in charge of equipment they purchased from the now non-existent XYZ Corp. The
new company did not grow. In fact in 2012, the company filed for
bankruptcy. I had a small satisfaction,
as the demise of my competitors did not happen because of my doing. They
destroyed themselves. It was a kind of justice by competitor’s mutual suicide.
Why I decided
not to be a spy
Until I learned that I was already considered
to be enmeshed in international spy intrigue, maybe as double or triple spy, I was
thinking about choosing such carrier. My thinking was inspired by James Bond
movies which I enjoyed as a young man, after I came to the West where such
movies legal. After some thinking, I decided to abandon the pursuit of a career
like James Bond 007, because I considered it subservient to the “higher”
authority which sent him to distant countries to kill or be killed, without his
knowledge why such decision was taken. In anything, I could consider to be head
of such organization, be it KGB, CIA or MI5 (British). I could consider myself
as the one who makes strategic decisions and sends his “James Bonds” on
dangerous missions. The longer I lived and read about KGB experiences from
people who were members of this organization I eliminated a career in the KGB
as much too risky. Most of the heads of the KGB were murdered by Stalin, and
devotion to the Communist cause was not valued much in the Soviet Union. Besides,
Communism conflicted with my spirit of free enterprise. I could be the head of the
CIA. When one day I decided to use the Freedom of Information Act and obtain my
file from the CIA to be sure that they had correct information I was deeply
disappointed. I received a one page document in which 80% of the text was blacked
out as top secret. Later I tried to contact the CIA, begging them to take over
my case and investigate me instead of bumblers from the Treasury Department Customs
Office who accused me of being an extremely dangerous Soviet spy of high
technology. To my disappointment the CIA did not return my many letters and
finally these letters started coming back to me with a stamp “Address Unknown.”
This was insulting, as I know precisely where CIA headquarters are and I have
seen its offices many times from the highway each time I visited Washington DC.
Being a British spy was not feasible since I did not know the address of MI5
headquarters. Besides, I found it too
small potatoes to bother with. I decided to be an independent spy for myself
and investigate my girlfriend who had illicit relation with a fellow waiter and
who when confronted with my spy results, abandoned me and left me to my own
devices. Now many years later I am glad that it has happened, but the story may
be of interest to younger generations not to repeat the same mistakes. Her name
was Nina and her story is described in another chapter of this book.
How I became a British spy
When I first went to Finland and later to
Sweden, I did not know that the extension of my stay, beyond one month
specified on Finnish Students Organization invitation would become a concern of
the Polish Communist Secret Police, known as UB (Bureau of Security). I
arranged this invitation by “purchasing” it from officials of the Finnish
Students Union, who visited the Wroclaw Student Club and ran short of money for
vodka. In exchange for 4,000 zloty, a sum equivalent to my two months’ salary
at Polytechnic Institute where I worked as an junior assistant, they promised to
send me an invitation to Finland including one month’s lodging and food. I took
a risk in this transaction, because I gave them money without receipt and in
addition they were already drunk. I only hopped that that they would remember
what they promised when they sobered. A month later to my pleasant surprise I
received an official invitation which was as I
insisted adorned with a large embossed seal. The seal was essential because I knew the
Polish officials’ admiration with seals. Embossed seals were always more
valuable than a mere ink imprinted seal but the most impressive was a seal
impressed in wax, lead or lacquer.
This was a middle range seal, just embossed
in paper. The invitation spelled out all the necessary conditions of my stay,
but I did not take a risk to apply for the passport myself. The official
invitation required an official organization to sponsor my trip. Who would be
better than the Polish Student Union, ZSP, where I already had some friends and
other connections. The travel office of the Polish Student Union was at the
time headed by a cousin of Karol Pelc, my close friend then and now, if it
really matters, retired professor of Michigan Technological University. Within a
month or two I had obtained the dear-to-me Passport to travel to Finland as an
official representative of the Polish Student Union. In the meantime, I also
had another informal invitation from a student of mathematics at Uppsala
University in Uppsala, Sweden which I arranged during my previous year’s (1969)
train voyage for vacations in Romania. I asked a Swedish student to place a small
advertisement in the local student paper that a Polish student from Wroclaw
wished to exchange a stay with a Swedish student. The Swedish student who was traveling in the
same train was standing with his girlfriend for two nights, because they had no
money for a sleeper. I offered them my bed in the sleeper car during the day
and for this they were very grateful. The exchange meant one month’s lodging
and food. As a result, I was hosted the following summer a young mathematician
from Uppsala, named Lars Inge Hedberg, who later became quite famous and even
became President of the Swedish Mathematical Society. I kept my relation with
Lars to myself, except for my first wife Elisabeth, who had to know the details
and who somehow became involved in my “spying” affair and later volunteered
information about me to Secret Police. For sure I was not going to tell the
Passport Office about my plans to visit also Sweden, as it would confuse them
even more. So when a few months passed
and I did not return to Poland, an agent of the Secret Police paid a visit to
my former wife Elisabeth and following is his report in rough translation.
Unfortunately one cannot translate the bureaucratic jargon of Communist Secret
Police word for word to English, but perhaps our Home Land Security has similar
slang, different from colloquial English. It is perhaps truth to any
bureaucratic structure to invent its own language to enhance its own
importance.
I my case I did not know that I was the subject
of multiple investigations by Polish (Communist) Secret Services until I got
copies of secret reports on myself, now freely available from the archives of the
(Polish) Institute of National Remembrance. Unfortunately, the files are not
complete and perhaps purged before Communism in Poland collapsed. I received
about 200 pages of it, which is still better than one page, with most of the
text blacked out that I received from the CIA under the Freedom of Information
Act. My “spying” activities as documented in these files span a period from
March 1961 through July 1982 in a file called “Jacket 5228” when my investigation
was closed because of my defection to the U.S. Jacket 5228 documents 20 years
of useless pursuits by overstaffed Communist intelligence agencies desperately
trying to find a reason for its own existence by identifying me either as an
American “spy” or trying to recruit me as their own agent. One can draw the
conclusion that this is not a unique situation with Polish-Communist
organizations and can be extrapolated to similar U.S. operations of recent
days. In fact it was duplicated in the U.S. in 1984 when I was accused by the U.S.
Customs as a conduit for “super computers” used to design atom bombs which I
supposedly smuggled to Moscow. In fact, my so-called “super computers” were
made in Taiwan and poorly resembled IBM-PCs. They had a clock of less than 5MHz
and no hard disk. I will write about this ridiculous incident later. It looks like
when Communists gave up on me, U.S. spy agencies picked up.
From secret files of Polish Communist Secret Police
My entire file contains about 200 pages. Here
are a few excerpts indicating what kind of surveillance I was under since my
departure to Finland in 1960.
Fortunately for me, they gave up on me and labeled me as “lacking
loyalty” to their Communist causes.
Wroclaw, 27 March 1961
Secret
Information Note
Based on the information from
Capt. “Czeslaw” indicating that Citizen Czekajewski Jan refused to return to
the country from an official trip to Finland and is currently residing in
Sweden, I have conducted today an investigation in which I come to the
conclusion that the information previously provided is true. I have established
that the Czekajewski Jan Andrzej married to Czekajewski, maiden name Pienkowska
Elisabeth, etc. etc. . . .
As a result of the interview I
established that citizen Czekajewski at this moment has a lover who resides
with her. The neighbors have been told that this is her cousin. He is Citizen Blaszczyk Zbigniew, son of
Stanislaw and Jadwiga, maiden name Pinilo. Born January 22, 1926 in the
settlement of Kopyczynce, district of Tarnopol. Current address: Zelazna Street
Nr. 37 apartment 10.
Citizen BLASZCZYK Zbigniew is
working at the university and he is also managing a Motorist Club at the
District Committee of ZMS (Association of Young Socialists). He is a former agent of (Communist) Security
Services and he was working as such in the District of Katowice.
Senior Operation Office, Dept
II
Jan Krochmalczyk, Lieutenant
The fact that Elisabeth had a
lover did not surprise me, but that he was a former member of the Secret Police
was a novelty. In spite of such an influential connection, my wife at the time,
Elisabeth still did not get a passport to travel to Italy, as there was a
suspicion that she may plan to join me in emigration. In the meantime, the following documents from
the Secret Police indicated that I had become a person of interest within
different departments of Homeland Security. The next meaningful report was
after my unexpected return from Sweden to Poland.
Wroclaw August 30,
1961
Information Note
From the conversation with citizen Czekajewski, Elisabeth
(abbreviation)
As of today I have
conducted interviews with Citizen Czekajewski Elisabeth about her husband
Czekajewski, Jan. I have concluded from this conversation that the marital
relations between Czekajewski, Elisabeth and Czekajewski, Jan no longer exist.
In 1959 in Wroclaw
he was visiting a Swede named Beckman who came by his own car and had a
photographic camera. Czekajewski was in his company most of the time and
allocated him in his second apartment at Powstancow Slaskaich Street.
In November 1960
Czekajewski left Poland for Finland and later for a year resided in Sweden.
According to her, Czekajewski intended to stay in Sweden for good, but
something did not work out and he returned in the first days of June 1961.
After his return to
Poland, Czekajewski was working with his lover, Zofia Krolikowska in a Swedish
Pavilion during the Poznan International Fair. For his services he obtained
payment in Sweden before his departure for Poland. He intends to obtain work in
Poland in some scientific Institute which would excuse Czekajewski from
military service. . .
He intends to
return to Sweden after finishing his Ph.D. thesis and then organize departure
of his lover Zofia Krolikowska to Sweden where they will both reunite.
In light of the
above information it is my opinion that Czekajewski, Elisabeth was honest. She
does not care about her husband she cannot forgive him his betrayal. She also declared her help for Security
Services if she can be of any use in this case.
I thanked her for
her willingness to help, and I do not exclude the possibility that in the
future we can use her services.
Information:
Mentioned above
BECKMAN as we derive from other information, cooperates with the centre of
Polish Emigration namely Lisinski Michael from Free Europe Radio.
The fact that
Czekajewski was working in the Swedish pavilion in Poznan International Fair is
very new to us.
Actions
1.
Check the fact that
Czekajewski is being considered to be
drafted by military services
2.
Send letter to Dept. XI to see if
they have any information about Czekajewski working at the Poznan International
Fair.
3.
Test possibilities to use citizen
Odulinski to investigate Czekajewski. Review his application for passport.
Senior Officer
Department II
J. Krochmalczyk
Lieutenant
The most flabbergasting information
is about some Swede, Beckman, and Michael Lisinski who works for Free Europe
Radio in Stockholm, Sweden. My former
wife should have known better that the name of the Swedish student was Lars
Inge Hedberg, and I never met (nor did she) Mr. Beckman. This mistaken information started a long
investigation of my person suspected to be an agent of foreign power.
One of the previous reports mentioned
that their secret informer, code name “Oda,” would search my belongings and
provide addresses of the people I met in Sweden. This “informer” happened to be
my friend Romuald Odulinski, who asked me to provide the addresses that his
contact in the Secret Police demanded. Oda got from me what he was asking, and
this resulted in confusion regarding one name: Duda, an émigré from
Poland. Apparently in the secret files
of the Ministry of the Interior in Warsaw, Poland there was an agent named
Duda, who was an American spy, arrested in Poland when he was trying to cross
the Polish-German border. He was sent on a mission in Belarus. After serving a
one year sentence for illegal border crossing, Agent Duda managed to escape
with his friend to West Germany and according to information in the files now
works for U.S. Intelligence. Now the Polish Secret Police wanted to know me
better. Apparently, I was an enigma to
them. Why would I come back to Poland when I had a good job in Sweden? Why
wouldn’t I stay in my apartment with my wife? Instead I stayed in a one-room,
decrepit apartment with my high school friend,
Romuald Odulinski, who was considered a trusted informer—code name
Oda—for the Secret Police? To clarify this dilemma, the Secret Police demanded
that Oda provide a written characteristic of my psychological design. I had no
choice but to help Oda with his task and wrote my own characteristic. The
problem was that I had to include enough negative elements of my stellar
character to make the report believable. Following is the transcript of my own
report, written 50 years ago, which refreshes my memory. I knew that I wrote
it, but didn’t remember the details. Now
it is clear. An original report was in
the files preserved by the Institute of National Remembrance and available to
anybody willing to pay the price of copying it. My friend Romuald, Oda,
received congratulations from his contact officer for submitting one of the
best reports ever delivered to the Department II, Security Services of Wroclaw.
Wroclaw, September 29, 1961
SECRET
Source: “Oda” (Odulinski, Romuald)
Received by: Kniaziuk J.
REPORT
RE: Czekajewski, Jan
My acquaintance with Mr.
Czekajewski starts with High School in Czestochowa, where we both attended the
9th grade. One could say that he represents a type of extreme
individualist. Even in high school he experienced conflict with teachers when
he disagreed with them on subjects presented as truth. One could say that he
has a special pleasure in questioning the opinion of established authorities.
He has a tendency to question the opinion of the majority, even if it may be
detrimental to his best interests. On
the other hand, he has a very lively nature and shows innovative incentive in
his pursuits. In spite of having many
ideas and concepts he is not systematic and often changes his decisions. This
does not mean that he is irrational, as he pursues his main objectives and
goals. In specific areas which interest
him at the given moment he is able to exhibit a great intensity of work, but in
other situations there is no force which can make him work on a subject in
which he does not believe, or which belongs to his job obligations. In his own opinion, his character can be described
from his relations with women. The relationship is always perfect until there’s
an expectation of responsibility or obligation.
He is very nervous and nothing will stop him from telling somebody the
truth, which causes him to have many enemies. He has a great sense of humor,
but it may be more correctly described as malice.
He likes a comfortable style of
life, but at the same time does not pay much attention to gathering wealth in
spite of the fact that he is always well paid.
His travels start with his trip
to Romania, two years ago. According to him, during his trip, he met some Swede
with whom he spoke about the possibility of traveling to Sweden on the basis of
exchange. This Swede promised to help him and after some time sent him a copy
of a student paper, where he placed an advertisement that he, Jan Czekajewski,
was interested on the basis of exchange to visit Sweden. As a result of this advertisement one Swede
replied and his name was Lars Hedberg, student of mathematics. The Swede had to come first. Before the
Swedish student arrived, Czekajewski had a discussion with a group of
foreigners in the student club, Palacyk.
At that time he never passed up any opportunity to perfect his English
language having in mind his next trip to Sweden. The foreigners at Palacyk appeared to be a
delegation of the Finnish Student Association. As a result of his conversation
with this group, the Finns assured him that they would invite him to Finland to
get acquainted with the Finnish student milieu. After some time these Finnish
students sent him an invitation.
In the meantime he was hosting
Mr. Lars Hedberg, who was visiting Poland for one month. He came to Poland by
his own car and was supported by Czekajewski.
Additional Information:
Source Oda is a close
acquaintance of Czekajewski, Jan, who is a subject of interest of Department II
of the local Command of Police (Comrade Krochmalczyk). We enclose this
information about Czekajewski as requested in the letter of Department II on
this subject. The above information is
only part of a larger, more elaborate description because Oda had no time to
write it all. He will do it before October 5, 1961. Oda gave to us a number of addresses he found
in Czekajewski’s notebook (see enclosure).
Hand written note: “Data related to the character of Czekajewski
confirms his second acquaintance, citizen Pelc who says, that: ‘Czekajewski is
too large a coward to undertake any kind of action contrary to our interests.’”
Inspector of Independent
Special Group of
District Command of Police
Joseph Kniaziuk
At this point I was in Lublin, where I had
taken the position offered to me by Professor Zuk when in Uppsala. Professor Zuk was still in Uppsala when I
arrived in Lublin, in the September 1961. There was no apartment for me so the
university offered me a “guest room” in the female student dormitory at the
address: Langiewicza 17 Block A. To my
surprise, this address was mentioned by me in the Passport Application now in
the documents stored in the Interior Ministry files. The guest room was in the basement of a large
concrete block, and the only light I could see came from the slot of a window
well where I could observe the shoes of girls coming or leaving the dorm. Once
news arrived from the Ministry of Interior Affairs to the local Secret Police
that I was now “penetrating” the Lublin area, I was contacted by another
officer for an interview. Here is the
excerpt from that encounter:
Lublin, 24 September 1962
SECRET
(excerpt)
Information noted from the
interview with Czekajewski, Jan, son of Franciszek, employed as a scientific
worker of University Maria Curie-Sklodowska in Lublin.
Reason for Interview:
Because “figurant” was
delegated to Sweden for nine months of scholarship to Sweden, we did not object
to his travel due to a lack of materials justifying refusal of his right to
travel. We decided for an interview to clarify subjects of our interest.
Information:
As a result of an interview
with “figurant” I confirm that he is intelligent, full of energy and possesses
a lot of initiative. As an opponent he
would be a dangerous combatant; however, I am concluding that the situation is
not so dangerous and that there exists the possibility of using his values in
our work. Before making a final decision we must finalize investigative work on
this subject.
Undertakings
1. Check who else from our services will travel
to Sweden. Report about behavior of
“figurant” while abroad.
2.
Institute monitoring of any correspondence of “figurant” as well as his
contacts in the country.
Lublin, 14 January 1963
B.094/63/PT
SECRET
To the Director of Department
II B.P.Z. (Office of Foreign Passports)
Ministry of Interior in Warsaw
In the operational interest of
Department II in Lublin: Scientific
worker of local university (UMCS) Jan CZEKAJEWSKI currently remains in Sweden
on scientific practice. While there he made inquiries and finalized an
invitation for his friend Krolikowska, Zofia, living in Lodz, to have a similar
practice in the medical field. Because in the past Department II in Wroclaw was
interested in Czekajewski, they restricted departure of Krolikowska to this
country. Following the Office of Foreign Passports undertook a similar negative
decision. Our unit which is responsible for Czekajewski is planning for
Czekajewski specific operational activities.
Refusal of passport for Zofia Krolikowska is in conflict with our plans.
Therefore we are asking to annul restrictions of her travel which were
requested by Lodz and Wroclaw, and allow her to travel to this (Sweden)
country.
Deputy Department II
Stanislaw Sobanski, Captain
Probably as a result of this intervention,
Zofia got her passport and arrived to Uppsala, Sweden. I was not aware what kind of “operational plans”
the Department II of Polish Secret Services had in mind for me. I was never approached for any secret
activities.
Zofia started to work as a technician in the
X-ray department of University Hospital in Uppsala. In fact, she was the one
who X-rayed the broken hand of the future king of Sweden, now known as His Majesty Carl XVI Gustaf. I remember this event because I was sitting in
the waiting room, waiting for Zofia when the future king arrived in his Swedish
Air Force uniform assisted by two officers.
In the spring of 1966,
maybe March or April I left Poland for Sweden, on invitation of Dr. Jan Eksted
of the Institute of Pharmacology, Uppsala University. The night I left, there
was an urgent telephone call to my girlfriend Zofia asking when I left and how
to contact me. Fortunately, I was
already out of the country—probably in the German Democratic Republic. This time I had already decided that I would
never return to Communist Poland. In
February 25, 1967 my current passport expired. I decided to write to the Polish Consulate in
Stockholm for issuance of a new passport valid for three years and covering
travel in all countries. Zofia joined me
in similar application for a new passport. I mentioned in my passport
application that my intention was to take a job at the Institute of Arctic
Biology in Alaska.
The Polish Consulate
in its short letter dated February 1967 informed me that they could only issue
a one page document authorizing me to return to Poland and that a new passport
would not be issued. During my telephone
call asking what the reason was for such a negative decision, the consul
replied: “Your application and justification were apparently too short.” The real reason for Polish Consulate refusing
me a new passport, I found 44 years later in the following letter.
Warszawa, January 25, 1967
SECRET
Head of Section I Dept. I MSW (Ministry of
Interior Affairs)
Comrade Tolsdorf
In reply to your letter of
January 24, 1967, RE: Citizen Jan Czekajewski, son of Franciszek, I inform you
that currently our department is against issuing a new passport with validity
for all countries.
Director of Department VII
Division I
Ministry of Interior Affairs
A. KRZYSZTOPOLSKI, Lieutenant
Colonel
I was wondering what made me an enemy of the
People’s Republic, which was not a friend but at the same time I didn’t
actively oppose it. Apparently my passive acceptance of the Communist system
was not sufficient. They wanted to drag me into their network against my
will. The following note closes the
chapter of interest in my person by the Secret Police. At the time this note
was written I was already living for a year in the U.S. and Canada.
Warszawa, 21 of March, 1969
SECRET
Final Notice (excerpt)
RE: Czekajewski Jan, son of
Franciszek…etc
Living in Lodz, Glowna Street
9, apartment 13
The above person was the
subject of investigation No. 1263 by Department II, District Command of Militia
in Lublin because of “figurant’s” connections to foreigners living in
Capitalist countries. It was decided
that such contacts do not have symptoms of enemy activity. In 1965, citizen Czekajewski was the subject
of interest in the Department I Ministry of Interior Affairs and the subject of
a few interviews related to his work. Notes from these conversations were
deposited in the archives of the Department I Ministry of Interior Affairs
under no. SSW 7, volume 24. These documents do not contribute much to the
subject of the investigation.
At this moment Department I is
no longer interested in Czekajewski, because
of his lack of loyalty and cooperation.
Composed by:
J. Nowaczyk,
Scrambled
eggs and paper horses
(Treatise on
Entrepreneurship)
Next to my family’s house on Sniadeckich
Street in Czestochowa, Poland was a one story building owned by Mr. and Mrs.
Mielczarek. Their son-in-law, Mr. Kosta, had an environmentally friendly
workshop manufacturing caskets. I have heard that in better times, before the
war, Mr. Kosta even had a horse driven hearse.
In the front window he displayed one of his caskets as a reminder of our
mortality and that consequently he was ready to take care of all the
necessities and trivialities involved with death’s aftermath. Even as a nine-year-old child, I was thinking
that Mr. Kosta’s display of the coffin during the German occupation was grossly
inappropriate. The Germans already made
a sincere effort to remind us all of this fact, not with the Latin verse of Memento Mori but with salvos of
execution squads. It was just a reprehensible waste of Mr. Kosta’s advertising
resources, and an insult to the German occupying forces. Unfortunately, my
opinions on this subject did not matter, as I was a child without credibility,
which usually comes with senility.
Mrs. Mielczarek also had a garden, larger
than ours, and chickens. For those city dwellers, I have to explain, that when
a hen lays an egg, she announces this fact to the whole universe (nowadays
probably via Internet) by cackling. For some reason, Mrs. Mielczarek’s hens
chose to lay eggs near the property’s fence. On their signal I would run
downstairs to the garden’s fence with a wire hook, which I used to remove this
egg (or eggs) from the hostile environment of Mrs. Mielczarek’s garden. Subsequently, the embryos ended up in my
skillet as delicious scrambled eggs or a single egg meal. For a while I was
benefiting from the productivity of Mrs. Mielczarek’s chickens, until Mrs.
Mielczarek became suspicious of the infertility of her hens. One day she set a
trap. She waited hidden on the other side of the fence and then, when I was
pulling one beautiful brown egg from her hostile side, she grabbed my wire
hook. By pulling on it, she wrenched the wire hook from my hand. On short notice, she presented my ingenious
invention (one of many I had) to my parents, threatening that she would report
me to the German Gestapo (dreaded Secret Police), if I did not stop stealing
her eggs. At that time we had to be nice to our neighbors, who when enraged,
could report us to the Gestapo that we were either Jews or underground partisans.
The fact that we were neither was no excuse. We would have ended up, at best,
in a concentration camp with a lifespan scientifically shortened to about six
months. I mention, scientifically,
because German scientists developed a menu for the inmates, which assured rapid
weight loss, which now, in the U.S., is the envy of many citizens fighting
obesity. My childhood wartime culinary
experiences with scrambled eggs became widely appreciated later in my life. I
suspect that a few of my girlfriends, or even now my wife, God bless her heart,
would not have stayed with me if it weren’t for my omelet making talents.
In the basement of Mr. Mielczarek’s home
lived Mr. Czola who had two children. One of them was a boy close to my age and
we became friends. Mr. Czola also had a
16-year-old daughter, who during the war, trespassed accepted morals and
befriended a German soldier. Before the
Soviet army “liberated” Czestochowa on January 16, 1945, she escaped from her
home with her German lover. Fortunately, after a few days Mr. Czola’s daughter
returned home crying. Nobody in the neighborhood knew for sure if her lover
sent her home, or if he was killed in the next battle with the Russians. The above story illustrates the cheerful,
happy atmosphere of my home, courtyard and upbringing where I lived for 18
years, until I went to study at the Technical University in Wroclaw.
We all knew that Mr. Czola had no education
or any specific skills. Otherwise he would not have lived in a dark basement
with small windows below street level. After the Germans retreated from
Czestochowa, leaving behind quite a few of their own corpses, regrettably
without appropriate coffins and burial instructions, everyone started to look
for means to make a living. It was the next year or the year after, the summer
1946 or 1947, when I noticed fervent activity in the courtyard of Mr.
Mielczarek’s property. There I could see Mr. Czola with a friend who set up
production of little paper mache horses. They sold these toys to the pilgrims
visiting Czestochowa’s shrine of Jasna Gora (Light Mountain), famous for the
miraculous icon of the Black Madonna. Technology needed for the production of
these toys was necessarily simple and inexpensive because at that time, Goldman
Sachs did not extend offers of loans to the small businesses in the peripheral
Polish municipality of Czestochowa. Therefore, Mr. Czola had to rely on dry,
sunny, warm weather, a supply of old newspapers, paste made of rye flower mixed
with water and machinery in the form of a few hand carved wooden horses (about
30cm high and 50 cm long). The procedure involved first wrapping the horses
with newspaper, then applying an ample amount of rye flower paste all over, and
then covering it with another layer of newspaper. This procedure was repeated
about 10 times, until the layers of paper mixed with paste were about 1cm
thick. Then the horses were exposed to the sun and dried for a few hours. In
the final stage of production the paper shell was cut along the horse’s back
resulting in two complimentary half-horse shells. At this stage the wood
“master horse” was removed. The remaining two complementary paper mache halves
of the horse were glued together and painted with black and white oil paint. After attaching a small wooden platform with
four wheels, the paper mache horse was ready to be sold to pilgrims, who felt
obligated to bring toys to the children left back in the villages. I wouldn’t be surprised if these toys were
blessed and sprinkled with holy water at the Monastery making them not only
enjoyable for children but also revered.
For whatever reason, my observation of Mr. Czola’s
“Above-Ground Enterprises Unincorporated” stuck in my mind for many years to come.
Then of course, I reluctantly grew up,
went to university, immigrated to Sweden and subsequently ended up as an
entrepreneur and businessman in America.
After five years of residency in America I received American citizenship
which allowed me to visit “The Old Country,” Poland. My American citizenship
was essential for my personal security during the visit, because the Communist
Secret Police were grossly disappointed by my treasonous choice of Capitalist
freedom over a Socialist life and harbored much animosity against me. While in Warsaw I attended a party at a
friend’s home. It had to be between 1979 and 1980.
During this party, a lady approached me
describing the miserable conditions in which Polish people were living at the
time. “I have a son, 15 years old and
growing,” she told me. “He has a large
appetite appropriate for a healthy young boy. I would like to provide him with
nutritional food needed for his growing body. The best would be ham.
Unfortunately, I cannot buy ham in the State shops. Yes, one can purchase it on
the black market, but prices are horrific. I am working as an economist at the
Industrial Planning Commission, and with my meager salary I cannot afford such
a luxury as ham. I earn only 3000 zloty per month. Can you imagine that?”
From her insistence on feeding ham to her
son, I concluded, that she obviously was not an observant Jew or Muslim. She pressed me to express a sign of compassion
and promise that I would tell this to the American President when I saw
him. Instead of promising her that, I
told her the following: “Dear Madam, yesterday I was walking on the prominent
Warsaw Street, Nowy Swiat (New World) and stopped by the state-run furniture
store. There wasn’t much selection, just some sofas, china cabinets and simple
varnished kitchen tables. One such table, made obviously of common wood, such
as pine or oak, had a label with a price of 3000 zloty, equal to your entire
monthly income. Why don’t you start manufacturing such tables? It is the simplest furniture you can imagine
to make. It is simply a plank of wood or plywood on four legs. One can easily
learn to make one such table in a week and sell them on the black market at a
competitive price of 2000 zloty. If your husband joins you in such an
enterprise, you could buy enough ham not only for your son, but for the entire
family. You could be fully protein self-sufficient for the entire length of Communism
in Poland!”
The lady looked at me with disgust. Her response was as follows: “Who do you think
I am? You think that I am a carpenter or another low class laborer? I am an
economist with a master’s degree from the best university in Poland. What you
propose, is an insult! I was thinking
that I had the pleasure to meet an American gentleman. What a disappointment,”
she murmured to herself. She gulped a
glass of Polish brandy, Winiak, and departed toward another gentleman, this
time a local, in the ambience of cigarette smoke. He apparently shared her
misery. At that time, on Polish TV and
state radio stations, the secretary of Polish Communist Party (PZPR), Edward
Gierek was promoting a slogan: “Polish men can do it!” His intention was to
build confidence in Polish workers, that they can manufacture goods as good as
their Western counterparts. Today I would paraphrase this slogan into
following: “While one man can do it, another man does not care to try!” My new version of Comrade Gierek’s
slogan is much more universal
and also applies to today’s
Americans.
|
Jan, already a US citizen,
visits his home town in Poland
|
Cardiac output of rats
The success of
Columbus Instruments was based on my proper selection of a few products which
sold well and were unique on the market. Historically, I had started my company based
on the manufacture and sale of Animal Activity Meters for laboratory animals
and Cardiac Output Computers for humans. In fact, I was considered the
grandfather of animal activity measurements and a pioneer of computers for
measuring cardiac output in humans. I could claim that it was me who introduced
the U.S. to the measurement of cardiac output (blood flow through the heart)
using thermo dilution. This method was based on injecting a cold saline or
glucose in the main vein (vena cava) and subsequent measurement of temperature
change in the pulmonary artery. I learned this method when living in Uppsala,
Sweden from two researchers, Dr. Karl Pavek from Czechoslovakia and Karl
Arfors, a native of Uppsala. They were both working at that time at Pharmacia
Company now owned by Pfizer Co.
When I arrived
in Columbus, Ohio the only method used in cardiology was based on injecting
cardio green dye which later was found to be toxic. Cardiologists were stuck on
this method of measurement using cardio green dye and resistant to thermo
dilution which was considered a new and unproven method. I decided to make
computers for both methods and let cardiologists compare the results. As time
went on another researcher from Czechoslovakia, Dr. Gantz teamed up with Dr.
Swan, at that time Chairman of the American Heart Association, and developed the
Swan-Gantz catheter, which was also equipped with a balloon allowing the
introduction of the tip of the catheter into the pulmonary artery with greater
ease. The American Hospital Supply Corp.
started manufacturing these catheters and offered computers as an accessory
free of charge if the hospital purchased a minimum of 200 catheters per year. I
couldn’t compete with such methods especially when I wasn’t able to make
balloon catheters with required sterility. Selling such products also carried a
large legal responsibility if the catheters were defective or malfunctioned
inside the patient’s heart. Overnight my
business of Thermo Dilution Cardiac Output Computers disappeared with a whimper.
About the same
time I got a large order from the Pediatric Institute in Moscow, USSR. My
representative in Sweden, John Larson of Medata AB, who procured this order,
forgot to mention that this instrument was intended for rats not humans.
Unfortunately the instruments were ready for shipment and were made and tested
for humans. My small company could not withstand losing this order, so I decided
to try to make it work for rats. None of
the current available temperature sensors (thermostats) needed to measure
temperature in the pulmonary artery was small enough to slide it into a 200
gram rat. In fact, none of the physiologists were able to float a catheter into
a rat’s pulmonary artery. The rat’s heart was just too small. In this moment I
recalled an experiment done by Dr. Karl Pavek and Dr. Karl Arfors on dogs. They
injected cold saline into the dog’s main vein and measured the temperature
change in the aortic arch, after the blood went through the lungs and left heart.
Nobody believed that it would work because everybody assumed that the cold
saline would be warmed up in the large surface of the lungs.
|
Columbus Instruments first
Cardiac Output Computer for dye and thermo -dilution
|
The instrument was packed and I
dispatched it along with a young engineer, Mr. Ken Kober, to Moscow. I should mention that Mr. Kober over the years
became an accomplished designer, programmer and now serves as marketing
director for our company. While in
Moscow, Ken with help of Dr. Pinelis of the Pediatric Institute would test my
concept on real animals. Ken had never catheterized a rat and had to learn this
procedure from Dr. Pinelis who was an expert in this field. They worked
together until they obtained the correct measurements with the Cardiac Output from
a number of rats. At this moment, Ken Kober with Dr. Pinelis proved that my
concept was valid. We also realized that we had a new valuable product, because
at the same time a new kind (breed) of rat was developed, “salt sensitive
rats.” These rats developed high blood
pressure when fed a salty diet. The
pharmaceutical companies around the world were rushing to develop medicines to
treat high blood pressure and using salt sensitive rats as a test model. Knowledge of cardiac output in salt sensitive
rats became imperative for their research. Columbus Instruments’ Rat Cardiac
Output Computer was a blessing to them. We sold hundreds, if not thousands, of
these computers to all the pharmaceutical companies in the world as well as many
universities. We had no competition and we are still, 25 years later, the only
company that manufactures Cardiac Output Computers for rats and mice. Now this
particular research requiring measurement of cardiac output in rats has nearly
vanished, but when it was booming it provided Columbus Instruments with the necessary
cash flow for the development of new products in other fields. These new
products were “Oxymax” Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide metabolic computers for rats
and mice and more recently Oxymax-CLAMS, which measures multiple physiological
parameters in genetically modified (knock out) mice and rats.
|
Jan Czekajewski and Ken Kober
with Circulatory System Computer for rats
|
|
Patent on Cardiac Output
Computer
|
|
Patent for Infrared Sensors
Animal Activity Meter
|
|
1st Brochure for Selective
Animal Activity Meter
|
Once a spy, always a spy: The story of “Super Computer”
|
Poster of the “Exodus”
organization
|
Their representative was sure that once the
Soviets saw this equipment they would buy it. On June 1, 1985 the instruments
were sent by air to Helsinki, Finland where our representative would take them,
by train, along with his own products, to Moscow. Unfortunately, my shipment
was stopped in New York, at Kennedy Airport where the cartons were opened and
customs officers realized that they had a trove of high-tech contraband.
Their focus was on the Taiwanese IBM-PC which
featured a label on the back panel:
“Super Computer.” As I remember,
we chose this computer because it was cheap; its value was only $400. Customs agents got very excited after they
consulted the list of forbidden strategic products, and found “Super Computer”
listed as a computer used to develop long-range ballistic missiles and atomic
weapons. In the meantime, in Moscow,
Chuck McKinniss, our engineer, was waiting for the shipment. He was supposed to
demonstrate our rat respiration monitor to the Russians. Expedited delivery was
crucial, as the exhibit was starting in just a few days. When I learned about
the equipment stoppage in N.Y., I called the U.S. Customs in N.Y. and explained
to them that this equipment should be dispatched immediately—otherwise we would
miss the exhibit. The equipment was to
be shipped to Helsinki, but its final destination was Moscow. The gentleman on other end of telephone line
was congenial and promised to expedite merchandise as quickly as possible.
I didn’t know what he really meant. In a few
hours, the same day a few cars full of agents of Operation “Exodus” descended
on my company, blocking all entrances and barging inside with a search warrant
for “Super Computers,” Apple II computers and Epson Dot Matrix printers. Behind them were crews from two local TV
stations, Channel 4 and Channel 10. Here I came to understand what Operation
“Exodus” was. It was formed as a part of
the U.S. Department of Treasury, sponsored by the Pentagon to track and stop
contraband of high tech materials to the Soviet Union. They had a district office in Cleveland and
they were alerted by U.S. Customs at Kennedy Airport that a high-tech spying
operation was based out of Columbus, Ohio headed by someone talking with a Russian
accent. They probably took me for a Soviet “sleeper” agent pretending to escape
from Communism, but in fact engaged in running a secret spy operation. They imagined that I was engaged in devious
operations known as “trans-shipment” by sending forbidden materials to a
neutral country (Finland) where it could be sent to the forbidden final
destination such as Moscow.
When agents burst through the front door it
was early afternoon and they stayed late into the evening, probably 10 p.m. They searched through all the files and
finally interviewed me, asking how long I had been trading with the Soviets. I told them that I had probably been trading
with the Soviets for 17 years, since the beginning of my company. At one point, I decided to go to the kitchen
to make some coffee. Two agents, a man
and a young woman, jumped up on their feet and followed me to the kitchen,
observing closely what I was doing. Then it dawned on me that they were there
to prevent me from taking a cyanide pill or other poison. Obviously, if I was dead, their investigation
would be much more difficult. At the end
of the day, the Exodus agents took some files related to my trade with the Soviet
Union and left. They didn’t arrest me nor did they confiscate any “Super
Computers” two of which were still at the company. I suspect that the reason
for this omission was the fact that the “Super Computer” label was small and placed
on the back of the computer’s panel. They didn’t look closely at the contraband
treasure right in plain sight.
Ten days later the same Exodus agents came
again to confiscate more files pertaining to my exports to the Soviet Union.
Television crews were again alerted and on hand to document the incident. The same evening local and national
television news casts ran a story about the deceptive measures Columbus
Instruments was employing to bypass the vigilance of U.S. Customs officials. The “news” reports featured a graphic with a
red line starting in Columbus, Ohio and extending all the way across the
Atlantic Ocean to Helsinki, Finland and then on to Moscow. Surprisingly, I was never called to offer a
statement or testify to explain my actions. Instead, my secretary, Marcela Long was called
in front on the Federal Grand Jury to explain if the final destination—Helsinki,
not Moscow, was a deception. “Was it Mr.
Czekajewski who forced you to do so?” they asked. Fortunately, Marcy did not bend. She was the one who asked the airline how the
export declaration should be filled out and she did exactly what they told her.
In the meantime Chuck McKinniss had his own experience in Moscow.
Chuck McKinniss
in Moscow
|
Chuck McKinniss as a highway
patrolman. Visiting Columbus Instruments.
|
He didn’t have much respect for Operation Exodus
and he knew perfectly well that I was not guilty. He dressed like a cowboy with
a large belt buckle, cowboy boots and a wide-rimmed cowboy hat. When he landed
in Moscow and showed his copy of the passport with no visa in it he was
immediately arrested. At the same time
when I was featured on U.S. TV as a Soviet high-tech agent, Chuck was shown on
Moscow TV as a crazy American cowboy who came to the U.S.S.R. with a copy of a
passport. Fortunately the organizer of the
medical conference was a former Soviet astronaut who had strong connections in
the Kremlin. After a few days, Chuck was
released, but the conference had already ended without our equipment, which was
confiscated in NY. Chuck had no other option but to return to Columbus, where
he was surprised to learn that Columbus Instruments had similar problems, only
in reverse.
My mission in
Moscow
While trying to
convince US Customs and “Exodus”
organizations that a $400 Taiwanese
IBM-PC clone, which we had sent to Moscow, was not a “Super Computer” I decided to travel to Moscow myself and
document the computers that were available to the Soviets from Western sources.
The availability of similar computers to the Soviets would exonerate me of the
charge that I had sent advanced technology to the Soviets from which their
space and nuclear research programs could benefit.
It just so happened
that the Soviets organized a medical instruments exhibition in which our
Swedish representative, Medata AB, would be participating in and would support
my visa application. On the American
side, I was afraid that my travel to Moscow would be construed as an attempt of
escape from the US since I was still under a Federal Grand Jury Investigation. To remove any suspicion I called the Federal
Judge in Columbus, who was in charge of my case and told him about my plans. To
my surprise he encouraged me to go.
Equipped with
the large, yellow TV camcorder I embarked on this trip. While at the exhibition
in Moscow I approached a variety of German, French and British companies asking
them if they could provide IBM-PC computers or similar clones to Moscow, explaining
that a special license was required in the U.S. and it was very difficult to
obtain. I was instantly surprised by the availability of computer equipment
much more powerful than the Taiwanese clone. I documented every conversation
using my yellow Sony video camera making it clear to all parties that I was
recording the conversation. Since I was suspicious that the Soviet KGB was
observing the activities of all U.S. visitors, I was very careful to not hide
any of my actions. In total, I made two
hours of recordings on video tape (which I still have to recall my Moscow
adventures). I was sure that my recordings would not escape KGB notice and a
moment would come when they ask to inspect my video tapes and confiscate them.
To prevent such an
occurrence I put one of the tapes in an envelope and delivered it with a
personal note to the U.S. Ambassador, Mr. Arthur A. Hartman. Mr. Hartman was
aware of my predicament with U.S. Customs and “Exodous.” To my surprise, nobody
at the Moscow airport searched my baggage or asked me about my recordings. When
I arrived in Columbus a few weeks later I received a hand written note from Mr.
Hartman thanking me for the video tape of the available computers. He also
mentioned that my case was the subject of much discussion at the highest levels
within the U.S. Government with participation of the U.S. Secretary of State, Mr. George Shultz,
Secretary of Commerce, Mr. Malcolm Baldrige, and Secretary of Treasury, Mr.
James Baker.
I never expected
that my simple person would be the subject of discussion on such a high level.
Hopefully the first and only time, as I was sure no good would come to me from
their discussions. The U.S. Ambassador
also mentioned that he requested an appropriate “intelligence” organization to
document the kind of computers our western friends supply to the Soviets. While
professional spies documented all this information, they apparently left their
cameras and film in the hotel room and went to the bar downstairs to quench
their thirst (either with whisky or the less expensive local vodka,
“Stolichnaya”). When they returned their
cameras and film were stolen and the U.S. Ambassador was left with my video
tape as the only evidence.
After returning to Columbus with
proof of the wide availability of computers to the Soviet Union, I was hoping
that the U.S. Treasury and “Exodus” organization would drop my case.
Unfortunately this did not happen, until The Wall Street Journal published an
article about my case many months later.
Fighting
US bureaucracy
|
Jan with two rat conspirators
during the Exodus spy investigation.
|
Then I made a stamp, large in size which
read: “Exporting Could be Dangerous to your Mental Health.” From now on, all my correspondence to the
government offices I stamped in bold red ink with this stamp. I was trying to provoke a response. I also learned that when an assistant of
Senator Metzenbaum went to the Department of Treasury to inquire about my case,
he had an interesting conversation in the legal department. The prosecuting attorney assigned to my case
admitted: “In reality, I like this Czekajewski; he really believes that we have
a democratic system here. Either he is crazy or uninformed. Doesn’t he know that we already made a
decision about his case?” When I learned about this conversation, I recalled
the conversation I had in the office of Committee of Science and Technology in
Warsaw, Poland. Both officials—Polish Communist
and U.S. Government Official—demonstrated disdain for a respected country
citizen. Political systems can have
different names, but bureaucratic practice remains the same.
|
Rubber stamp: “Exporting can
be dangerous to your mental health.”
|
On February
10, 1987 the Wall Street Journal published an article about my tribulations
with customs and about the general confusion within government agencies
concerning IBM-PC-type computers. The
day after the article appeared, a special technical advisory committee was
formed with participating representatives
from the
Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, the electronics industry,
the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and more to make
a ruling on the IBM-PC computers. They unanimously accepted the finding of a
report by the National Bureau of Standards referring to the IBM-PC, (just what
I had been trying to tell the government for the past two years). It stated that “incorporated into medical
devices” IBM-PCs can be shipped to any country in the world without an export
license. On March 19, Dr. Paul Freedenberg, Assistant Secretary for Trade
Administration at the Commerce Department, wrote me a letter indicating IBM-PC
and similar computers were now officially accepted license-free if incorporated
into medical devices. I forwarded this document to the U.S. District Attorney
in Columbus, and on April 8 the grand jury’s 23-month investigation of my
activities was dropped on the basis of “lack of evidence of a crime.” I have been having persistent nightmares that
I really made a mistake and equipped my Taiwanese PC clone with a 10-Mb hard
disk, which would definitely have made it a license-requiring commodity. The threat
of a prison term was not just in my imagination; people have been arrested and
convicted for similar offenses. The Exodus organization was desperate to
justify its existence and substantiate its continuous funding by providing a
record of arrests and convictions. Anything that looked like a crossbreed
between a TV and a typewriter must be a Super Computer on its way to Moscow.
The moral is
that if a totalitarian system ever arrives in the United States, it will not be
under the red banners of the workers’ revolution; it will be announced in the
Federal Register in complicated bureaucratic jargon. I am wondering why I ran
so far from Communist oppression to find myself so close to it. Does it prove
the earth is round? Now that the Soviets
have all disappeared as our arch enemy, I am being searched and X-rayed at
airports as a suspect of terrorist activity.
I am grateful to my parents that they baptized me as Jan (John) not as
Abdul or Mohamed.
Epilog of Soviet spy story
Fast forward 20 years. It is now the year
2007. I am visiting my old friend, Bob
Swain, who is now running Lane Avenue Travel agency. I am going to pick up my airline ticket. Bob
has run this agency for the last 20 years and tells me that I just missed the
Assistant Federal District Attorney, the one who went on TV in 1985 declaring
that he would persecute Czekajewski to the full extent of the law. He told reporters that he would make sure I
was sentenced to five years in prison for my high-tech espionage. When Bob told
him to wait a few minutes as I was on the way and it may be interesting for
both of us to discuss the old times, the District Attorney blurted out: “I was
so close to putting that son of a bitch in the slammer. He is damn lucky that he wiggled out of the
reaches of the law.” Apparently, I left a
lasting impression not only on the Exodus organization but also on the Federal
Justice Department.
This was the day I lost my political
innocence.
Entrepreneur of the year
After two years
of tribulations with the U.S Customs “Exodus” organization and Department of
Justice who desperately were trying to make me a Soviet hi-tech spy, I finally
was cleared of all absurd charges and able to resume my business making and
selling bio-medical instrumentation. Then I was re-discovered as a valuable
member of U.S. society and even rewarded with a trophy as Entrepreneur of the
Year in central Ohio in the field of high technology. The reward was sponsored by Ernst Young Co and
State of Ohio.
Apparently the absurd
charges by U.S. Customs did not preclude them to bestow on me this esteemed
award. Accolades from the Ohio Senate and Ohio General Assembly followed.
This occasion reminded
me of an old film about the American Revolutionary War, titled “The Devil
Disciple” made in 1959 with Burt Lancaster as the leading star. In this movie
English soldiers are bringing the American rebel to the gallows. In the last
moment a galloping messenger brings an order to suspend all executions. Armistice between England and the Revolutionary
Government was just signed. Disappointed English General Burgoyne, in charge of
the execution, removes the noose from the neck of the rebel and comments: “Because
I am forbidden to hang you, I invite you to my quarters for a cup of tea.”
Oxymax-CLAMS
CLAMS has nothing to do with Clam Chowder
made from shellfish which burrow in the bottom sea sediments. It’s an
abbreviation of the more elaborate name, Comprehensive Lab Animal Measuring
System. The CLAMS is a system which comprises many individual instruments functioning
in tandem under the control of the same software running on the same computer.
This instrument wouldn’t be possible if Columbus Instruments didn’t have a long
history of developing a variety of individual instruments for measuring animal
physiology and behavior. The development of it started when one day, probably
10 years ago, we faced an inquiry from The Jackson Institute located in Bar
Harbor, Maine. They needed a system which besides measuring oxygen consumption
and carbon dioxide production also measured food and water consumption and
animal activity. We at Columbus Instruments had built such individual instruments,
now we just needed to integrate their functions into one system. We won our
order and delivered close to a million dollars’ worth of instruments to Jackson
Laboratories. What’s more important is that Jackson Laboratories is world
famous in breeding genetically modified mice which are purchased by other
researchers worldwide. Some of these animals are genetically obese and used to
test drugs which counter obesity, others demonstrate human diseases like
diabetes which are being used to test new drugs for diabetes. Once the word got
out that Jackson Labs was using our instruments to test knock-out mice, other
researchers, worldwide, tried to start their own research and Columbus
Instruments was the obvious choice. CLAMS
is not a simple electronic instrument. It has many mechanical features which
years ago we would not have been able to make. Fortunately one of our
engineers, Mr. Clark Williams developed mechanical design skills with the help
of sophisticated software. Some of the
elements required sophisticated laser cutting machinery and others computerized
milling machines. I decided to invest in some of the machines and farm out work
to other companies which specialize in lasers. Now, years later when I look at the mechanical
complexity of CLAMS I am myself surprised at our progress over the last 10
years. Now CLAMS is a large part of our
business. We sell it worldwide to Australia, New Zealand, China and Canada. Some of these are delivered to pharmaceutical
research companies in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. In the U.S. most of the research divisions of the
largest pharmaceutical companies already have CLAMS and are buying more. At a time when the American manufacturing
industry shrinks, we at Columbus Instruments consistently sell over 50% of our
products to foreign countries. In
Germany, the government helps to promote German products while in the U.S. we
have to finance our R&D from our own profits. Apparently the U.S. pays more attention to the
banks than to the local factories. This does not project a bright future for
our country. In the meantime we try our best to do our share for
improvement of U.S. balance
of foreign trade.
|
Oxymax-CLAMS (Comprehensive
Lab Animal Measuring System) in environmental chambers
|
Micro-Oxymax:
Story of Spud’s respiration
Micro-Oxymax came to life as an extension of
work on Oxymax Oxygen Consumption Monitors used for measurement of metabolism
(oxygen consumption) in rats and mice. “Micro” does not indicate that it was
miniaturized, but that its sensitivity was increased to measure oxygen
consumption of much smaller subjects, such as bacteria cultures or plants. It is interesting how this idea came to life.
One day I received a phone call from some
researcher in Canada, who had seen a description of our Oxymax, asking if it
could be used to measure oxygen consumption in potatoes. Apparently, as he
explained to me, bruised potatoes consume more oxygen and if this increase
could be measured then our instrument could be used to test if potatoes were
“abused” during shipment and were bruised. Bruised potatoes would be prone to decay and
could not be stored. I told the
potential customer in Canada, that we had never had such a request and didn’t
know if the Oxymax had sufficient sensitivity to measure respiration in
potatoes. Nevertheless, I went to the
store and purchased 5 kg of potatoes for an experiment in Oxymax. When the potatoes
were loaded into the rat cage, the measurements were sufficiently
accurate. I could inform the Canadian
researcher that yes we could provide an instrument for his application. The next day I called to give him the good
news: “Yes, we can do it!” Then he asked
how many potatoes were in the cage. I
told him the exact number—I don’t remember any more but perhaps 20 or 30.
He said that wasn’t sufficient. “I need an
instrument that will measure the respiration of a single potato,” I was told.
This was not possible with the current Oxymax setup. I told him that we would
work on his problem and I would call him when we had a satisfactory solution. After some days of thinking, I came up with an
idea that might work. Instead of measuring
oxygen consumption in an open flow system, where air flows through the chamber
with potatoes at a constant rate, I could fill the chamber with ambient air and
measure the drop in the oxygen level after some time e.g. 30 min. In this
setup, the oxygen drop would be much larger and our oxygen sensor could measure
oxygen levels with a much higher accuracy.
I assigned the job of building a prototype of
such an instrument to one of my self-styled engineers, Swedish born Leif
Nenerfeld who, in spite of having a degree in geology, was a bright electronic
designer. Over the course of three months, Leif built a prototype and according
to my expectations, its sensitivity was high enough to measure a single potato.
Yes, now we could measure the respiration of a single potato. We called it
Micro-Oxymax. Excited, I placed a call
to Canada and informed our concerned agricultural scientist that we had a
solution to his problem. He could have an instrument that would measure the respiration
of a single potato. In turn, he asked how much it would cost.
I calculated the cost of components which
amounted to about $5,000 and according to my business calculations; the
instrument must cost a minimum of three times as much to break even. This price
estimation did not take into account even the cost of development. I told the Canadian that we could deliver a
potato respiration monitor for $15,000. “It
is 20 times too much. I expected that
such an instrument should cost less than $1,000. It should be available to the purchasing
agents in the field and should be handheld.” Our solution was too complicated for his
application. It became apparent that we
had an invention with no application. Nevertheless, I sent a news release to
instrumentation tabloids with a picture and short description what my
Micro-Oxymax could do. Articles about the
Micro-Oxymax were printed and we got a call from the EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency) asking if we could build such an instrument for them.
They were just consulting for an oil company,
Exxon, which was facing disaster in Alaska. One of their tankers, Exxon Valdez, spilled a
large amount of oil in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The following is information is available
about this leak from Wiki Leaks Encyclopedia:
Exxon Valdez oil
spill occurred in Prince
William Sound, Alaska, on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez, an oil tanker bound for Long Beach,
California, struck Prince
William Sound’s Bligh Reef and spilled 260,000 to 750,000 barrels (41,000 to
119,000 m3) of crude oil. It is considered to be one of the most
devastating human-caused environmental disasters. The Valdez spill was the
largest ever in U.S. waters until the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon oil spill, in terms of volume released. However,
Prince William Sound’s remote location, accessible only by helicopter, plane,
and boat, made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely
taxed existing plans for response. The region is a habitat for salmon,
sea otters, seals and seabirds. The oil, originally extracted at the Prudhoe Bay oil field, eventually covered 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of coastline, and
11,000 square miles (28,000 km2) of ocean.
The EPA was testing a new method of removing
oil residue, which covered the beaches of Alaska using bioremediation.
Bioremediation is a method of clearing pollutants using indigenous bacteria to
digest the contaminant (oil). To stimulate growth of these bacteria an
additional supplement of nitrogen is needed, which usually is supplied by
spreading the polluted area with nitrogen fertilizers. Micro-Oxymax looked like
the ideal instrument to model the process of bioremediation in the laboratory
before applying it in the field. The proper dose of nitrogen nutrients could be
selected using laboratory tests before applying it to the Alaska beaches. It
could save millions of dollars.
|
Micro-Oxymax
|
Its sensitivity of
0.2 micro liters of oxygen/hour is still unmatched by any other instrument. The applications of the Micro-Oxymax range
from bioremediation to measuring the respiration of algae, composting and
bioleaching. Bioleaching is a biological
process, using special bacteria to recover copper from copper ore. Other
applications include measuring the respiration of cancer cell cultures,
measurements of mold growth, degradation of polymers under ultraviolet
radiation and many more. We have sold
hundreds of such instruments to a variety of countries. The total sales of this
instrument amount to many millions of dollars.
Her name
was Nina
I met
Nina when I was seated at her table by the owner of a small
Ukrainian restaurant on Lane Avenue in Columbus, Ohio. This place, as I
remember served good blitzes and really tasty Ukrainian borsch. I’m not sure if the owner deliberately sat me
at the same table as Nina or if it was just the last available table. She was a young girl of 19 and had a black
eye. She claimed to be the victim of an
unfortunate racquetball accident. In the following conversation, she admitted
that she came to Columbus with her boyfriend, a cook, whom she met in the
restaurant where she was a server. Her boyfriend worked there in kitchen and
was apparently famous for his Béarnaise Souse.
I suspected that the black eye was the result of a heated argument with
her boyfriend, maybe about ingredients for making a souse, and not because of
foul play on the racquetball court.
At that time, I was more than twice as old as
she, over 40, and about five years after my divorce from Zofia, my second wife.
Any female companionship was for me very desirable. It didn’t take us long to
find common interests and the same day she shared my bed, and soon bedroom,
kitchen and the rest of the house. She
was at the time studying journalism and I offered to pay her tuition. Then she
decided to study art. As with the journalism, I paid her tuition to attend
Columbus Art Academy. Then she decided
to move to New York and study art at the famous Pratt Institute. I think I paid for her studies there, as well as
for her tickets flying home to Columbus on the weekends. Our relationship
lasted more or less six years, but somehow, as time went by, it became tenuous. I was aware that I was becoming a “sugar
daddy” infatuated with a young lover, who had no respect for me. I didn’t mind paying for her tuition, car
etc., but it was my conscious, deliberate choice—not because I was losing my
mind over Nina.
What probably irritated her most was that in
spite of the comfortable living I provided, she had little to say about my
finances. At that time, my financial
guardian and mental sanity was my secretary and bookkeeper, Marcella Long. She was a lady older than me, mother of five
children, happily married who besides being “Girl Friday” in my company was
also my emotional consultant. A few
years later she also saved me from possible prison, when I was accused by U.S.
Customs of shipping “Super Computers” to Moscow. Marcy gave me this advice regarding Nina:
“Give her what you can afford, but never give her the right to sign your
checks.” Here comes the spying part of
the story.
At that time, in my home, I often had parties
with many people attending. Kielbasa sausage and wine was in abundance. I also offered homemade lemon vodka which had the
treacherous quality of making you drunk like a skunk without noticing it. In
the back of the house I had a large porch and a wooded ravine. Nina served as a
hostess at my parties and it looked like everyone was happy, including Nina. During one of the gatherings, about 11 p.m.,
Nina decided to step outside, apparently to cool herself off. I didn’t notice that she was gone until my
guests started leaving. Then I started worrying about her—she disappeared
without even taking a coat.
Nights passed by and Nina was gone. I was
panicking that something terribly wrong had happened to her, and called her
mother in Detroit, alarmed about Nina’s disappearance. She was not much help,
but told me that I shouldn’t worry and that one day Nina would come back. Nearly two weeks went by and I was still in
emotional shambles. In the meantime, the
mailman brought to the company letters and bills to be paid. It was a Marcy’s job to scrutinize these
bills. Looking over a bill for gasoline, she noticed that purchases were from
gas stations located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. She asked me if I had
been to Canada recently, which was completely absurd. Also on the bill there
was a note that the purchaser was driving a Jeep Cherokee, which I didn’t own.
The license number of the car was listed on the bill as well.
Through an acquaintance in Highway Patrol,
Marcy learned the ownership of the Jeep and found him to be another waiter,
apparently a friend of Nina’s. All I could do was wait for Nina to return from
her to trip to Canada which was financed by my gas card. A few days later, Nina came back, but didn’t
explain her disappearance. It became
obvious to her that our relationship had come to an end. The next day she went to Connecticut—why
there, I don’t know. I was both glad and
sorry, as I probably loved her. “Love
after 40 is a very dangerous thing for a man,” said a friend of mine, a
psychiatrist, who knew me well. Nina
returned to Columbus the next year.
Apparently, whatever prospects she had in Connecticut didn’t pan out. She called me asking to stay with me for a few
nights, hoping perhaps that I might succumb to her charm. I refused, as it became clear that it would
lead to my disaster. Instead, she
shacked up with the same waiter she went to Canada with, who in the meantime
was living with another girl. He explained to his girlfriend that Nina was just
a friend who had no place to sleep. This time Nina got pregnant by him, but he
refused to marry her.
I have to give her credit—she gave birth to
the child and as a single mother obtained government help to finish her
studies, including law school. I had a
small revenge, when I learned that the waiter friend had to pay for many years
her child support. She was a bright girl who had a self-centered character.
Subsequently, she got married to a divorcée or widower with five children. He
probably expected her to be a mother to his children, which did not pan out.
She speedily divorced him, but not before she was pregnant again. Now years
later, she has two grown children, but probably no husband. My relationship with her was a sobering
experience for me. It was one of a few small victories, which I had to battle
to survive emotionally and financially. It was Marcy Long, my long time secretary who
saved my finances and my sanity. Last
year Marcella Long passed away. She was a good friend and after leaving my
company, she helped her husband to become a self-standing millionaire in the
field of plastic injection molding. She learned from me how one can do it,
without capital, by bootstrapping on a shoe string.
Nina cuts
the maple tree
In 2009 I purchased a new home, 15 miles north
and decided to sell the old home, where I lived since 1974 including nearly 6 years
I lived there, on and off, with Nina. In front of the home there was an
interesting maple tree which had 6 different trunks. It grew more like a bush
than a tree. This tree has a symbolic value for me. It symbolizes the instinct
of survival. For me it also symbolized my own victory over the destructive
influence of Nina.
Towards the end of my love affair with Nina,
apparently she became unsettled with our relationship. She wasn’t satisfied
with her position of a friend and lover, while at the same time she was
apparently too comfortable living with all of her expenses paid. One night, she
woke up, insisting that the maple tree, which I planted a few years ago, grew
crooked, and should be cut down. In my opinion, the crooked tree had its own
charm, and its leaning trunk did not bother me at all. After all it was me who
planted this tree in my own yard, which I owned many years before I met Nina. I
told Nina that I would not cut down this tree. Nina got out of bed, naked as the
day she was born, grabbed a small saw, more suitable to cut metal pipes than
trees, ran into the front yard and started to saw the tree to the amusement of
neighbors woken up by our loud argument. It took her a while but finally she
succeeded and the tree fell.
Nina could celebrate her victory. She prevailed, but
apparently, this was not enough. A few
weeks later she diapered to Canada with her incidental lover and then our
relationship ended. Our breakup was very difficult for me, but as time went by
I realized that Nina’s departure was best for both of us. In addition, the next
year I noticed fresh sprouts growing from the old maple tree trunk. I did not
cut them. I let them grow. As time went on these sprouts became trunks of a
large tree. This tree, still healthy, became a symbol of my victory over the destructive
intentions of Nina. What additional lessons have I learned from this tree? Now
in my new home, living happily with a new wife, I completely surrender all
management of trees and plants to her. I
do not dare to argue with her which new trees to plant or to cut. This way we
live happily ever after, as now I am too old to risk our marital bliss for just
one crooked tree.
|
The maple tree after
recovering from Nina's malice.
|
Marital blessing
by civil ceremony
After living quite
happily in sin for 13 years Laura and I decided to get married. The day of this
ceremony was by itself prominent. According to my now wedded wife it was the
first day of spring. The issue of marriage had never come to our minds before
because of my allergic reaction to this institution. It happened that many years ago, probably in
my adult age of 24, I was coerced to get married by a Polish girl name Elisabeth.
She insisted that she was pregnant by me
and that we needed a wedding ceremony to legitimize our relationship. Just one wedding wasn’t good enough for
Elisabeth—we had to have a double ceremony, meaning civil and religious. None of us was very religious at the time, but
nonetheless, a ceremony in the Catholic Church suited Elisabeth better as it
was irreversible. While I consented to a
civil ceremony, the religious ceremony presented a problem for me. For one, I didn’t attend church. Second, it required a prior confession.
Knowing that I had sexual relations with Elisabeth
for the previous five years and that I had enjoyed it, I couldn’t confess that it
was a sin which I regretted. But
Elisabeth insisted and I was getting more and more angry. So I decided,
stupidly, as I later found out, to punish her for her insistence. I falsified a
note from a priest in the parish in the remote city of Kluczbork (we were
living then in Wroclaw) that I underwent confession, and we went to the church
to wed. As I remember the only witnesses
were my friend Karol Pelc and his wife Ryszarda. I had served the same function at their
wedding two years earlier. After the
ceremony I became more and more angry with myself that I wasn’t able to stand
up for myself and say, “NO! I don’t want to get married!” When the evening approached I kissed my
“beloved wedded wife” on the cheek and said goodbye to her. I didn’t feel like making love to her anymore.
As time went on, her pregnancy never materialized
and I considered that it was a hoax. Fifty years later I found a second reason
why I shouldn’t have married Elisabeth. It
was a revelation from the secret documents of Communist Secret Police, that
Elisabeth had a romance with a former agent of this institution and in revenge
was offering her services to the despicable Secret Police to report on me.
|
Wedding Chapel in Columbus,
OH
|
“We are here to get married,” I answered.
“You want a religious wedding or a civil
ceremony?” she asked.
“Which is cheaper?”
“Religious is more expensive. It costs $150, while the civil costs only $100.”
“Why is the religious more expensive?” I
interrogated, still in the door of the wedding chapel.
“The religious wedding is performed by my
husband, a licensed minister. It cost him more to go to seminary. We have to
recoup the expenses. Therefore, the religious wedding is more expensive.”
“We’ll take the civil wedding,” I answered.
“Welcome then.” and she let us inside the chapel.
She had some problem with the stack of papers,
which listed the wordage of the ceremony. Finally when she located the right
one, she asked if we needed flowers.
“How much?” I asked.
“$25 for flowers (plastic, but looking very
natural) and $15 for a Polaroid picture.”
Due to the economy, we opted to get married
without plastic flowers and a Polaroid. During
the next five minutes the lady “minister” mumbled the wedding ceremony wordage
and then voiced the unexpected sentence: “Now you can exchange the wedding
rings.” We were terrified. We had completely
forgotten about the wedding rings. We didn’t have them. Then I asked if the
wedding was off, if we didn’t have wedding rings? “No, it would still be valid.” We relaxed then and the lady minister
declared: “Now you are man and wife.”
I assured myself that the wedding was valid
and that we would get the right papers from the municipal court in due time. We
left the chapel. As we were leaving, we
observed a mixed-race couple entering the chapel in the company of two
children. One was probably two years old, and had a problem crossing the
entrance threshold. They were properly dressed for a ceremony and I am sure
they had wedding rings prepared. We wished them all the best.
|
Jan and Laura as a wedding
couple
|
Uncle
Krauze
Some people you meet in your life, even briefly, leave in your memory a
lasting impression. Such was “Uncle”
Zygmunt Krauze. He was not my uncle. He was an uncle of my girlfriend, Zofia and I
met him sporadically a few times in Warsaw. His niece, Zofia, told some stories of his
life, other stories he told me himself. When I met him, I was 28 and he was
more than double my age. He claimed to be retired from the business, because
practically no legitimate business existed at that time in Poland—he was the quintessential
black-marketer. This is his story.
When after the
First World War the global flu epidemic decimated the population in the world,
Poland was no exception. In one week, both his parents perished. He was at that
time 15 years old, the oldest of the family of five. To survive he was selling cigarettes at
school. When this was discovered by the school principal he was expelled. He
was in the 6th grade then.
His parents, before they died, made a living by selling food in a small
shop in suburb of Lodz, named Widzew. Now,
after the parents’ death all obligation to feed his sisters and brothers was on
him. He had no choice but to travel to
surrounding countries to buy food stuff from farmers to sell it in his parents’
shop. During one such trip he met his future wife, Kazimiera who was twice his
age. She was also a widow, 32 years old. He figured that it would be better to
merge resources, move Kazimiera to Lodz to tend the shop and take care of his
siblings while leaving him free to travel on business.
Soon he figured
out that selling neckties and bowties was more profitable than selling
food. He employed his family to make
them. Business was booming. Soon he purchased one of the first cars in Poland,
which he used to distribute his merchandise countrywide. He called his new
business “Polish Necktie” (Polski Krawat). Such a trade name became popular in
Poland. He also observed that Poles had a fascination with flowers and it was
customary to bring a bouquet of flowers for every occasion, be it name day,
birthdays, funerals or weddings. He diversified his business interests. He
purchased farmland in another suburb of Lodz, Stoki, where he started to grow
flowers. On the main street, called
Piotrkowska, he opened a number of kiosks selling flowers to passersby.
Everything
looked good for Zygmunt Krauze, until 1939 when the Germans declared war on
Poland and incorporated Lodz into the German Reich. They discovered that Krauze
not only had a German name, but also he was born in Düsseldorf, Germany and his
father was a “real” German. They approached him with an offer to make him a Volksdeutsche,
as in Germany they called a person of German ethnicity. Krauze asked German
inspectors what exactly such a name represented and if he would become an
instant German how he would benefit from it.
Emissaries from the German Office of Racial Purity explained to him that
not only would he receive additional rations of bread and washing powder, but
he also would be entitled to defend Germany against American and British
Imperialist and Soviet Communists. Zygmunt
Krauze was in a bind, as he did not intend to die for Germany, but at the same
time, it was dangerous to refuse such a magnanimous offer. Then he came up with
a brilliant idea: instead of refusing to sign up for Volksdeutsche, he would
ask for full-fledged German citizenship, called Reichdeutsche.
Emissaries from
the German Office of Racial Purity could not agree with his demand, because his
mother was Polish and even if his father was German and his birthplace was in
Germany, according to Nuremberg Laws, he was not entitled to such an esteemed
rank. They left him alone for a few years, until a German army inspectorate
discovered that he was in cahoots with another German officer, making nails
from the wire stolen from the German army depot. Apparently, Zygmunt Krauze founded the nail
factory in my home town of Czestochowa and made a good living of it, for some
time, by selling nails to the Polish farmers. The outcome was disastrous for the
German officer and for Zygmunt Krauze himself. The German officer was sent to the
Russian front, where he probably perished along with many millions of Germans
soldiers, while Zygmunt and his cousin, who was working with him, making nails,
were sent to a German concentration camp in Mauthausen, Austria.
On May 5th,
1945 when the American army was liberating Mauthausen, Zygmunt and his cousin
were lying stripped of their clothing on a pile of dead bodies ready to be burned
in the camp crematory. They were starved to death. Americans had come to the
camp just in time. They gave the men food. Zygmunt was too weak to eat, so he
ate very little. His cousin who was stronger stuffed himself with food and died
after liberation. He couldn’t process the rich food. Zygmunt survived and
returned to Poland.
In Communist
Poland, Zygmunt Krauze found the business climate not only non-existent, but
also dangerous to anybody with an entrepreneurial spirit. Krauze had no other
alternative but to work in the underground economy. He decided to continue his
flower and textile business. While flowers were safer, because he concentrated
on growing and selling red carnations, the textile business was more dangerous
because he could not purchase textiles on the free market. He had to rely on
textiles “procured” or otherwise stolen from the state textile factories.
That was one
incident when Krauze cooperated hand in hand with the Communists. In 1948 the
Soviets who controlled Poland, decided that the time had come to finish the façade
of a multi-party system and merge the two already existing parties, socialist
and workers into a single party, called Polish United Workers Party (PZPR). For
this event Communists needed two million red neck ties. Each new party member
on this festive occasion had to wear the red necktie. This order also applied
to affiliated youth organizations. Time was short. State industry could not
meet the party demands. Then Zygmunt Krauze came with an irrefutable offer that
he could provide a million red neckties at a competitive price, but he needed a
supply of red cotton material, which was not available for him on the open
market. Leaders of Government set aside all ideological principles and granted
Zygmunt Krauze the material he needed. Krauze’s specifications called for
estimated surplus of material, because as he said, red neckties require much
more material, probably three times as much, as blue neckties. To my question,
how he could become the wealthiest person in Communist Poland, he answered: “from
the surplus red cotton material he made thousands of encasings for goose down
pillows sold to private individuals all over Poland.” The money he made on the Communist red
neckties he invested in expansion of his red carnation business.
In a Communist
universe, red carnations were a symbol of Communism itself. There could be no
funeral or installation of a new Party Secretary without bouquets of red
carnations presented or adorning the grave or coffin. Each time a
representative or Communist leader from Western Europe, such as Comrade
Togliatti of Italy would visit Moscow, children with red carnations would greet
him at the airport. These carnations were grown by Zygmunt Krauze, as none of the
State Soviet Enterprises could grow such fragrant and long lasting red
carnations as the Zygmunt Krauze plantation in Lodz. Apparently he was assured
by the Soviet Communists that his “red carnation operation” was safe, since the
whole Soviet system depended on it.
The textile
enterprises Zygmunt Krauze created were nothing more than extensive cottage
industries. As large numbers of employees would certainly bring attention to
the authorities, he had in his principal location in Lodz at Glowna Street 9,
only three ladies sewing neckties using old Singer machines. Three employees
was the limit he reported to tax authorities as a family enterprise, but this
location was a center for material distribution and reception of end products.
In his wisdom he employed also a wife of a high ranking officer in the Polish
Army, who according to him was in reality a Russian spy in the Polish Army. Uncle Krauze was always in good standing with the
local police who reported to him, whenever, there was a planned search of his
premises by tax officials. In such situations, a Polish-Soviet officer was
coming with a military truck to collect suspected materials to make sure that
the inspectors would find nothing incriminating.
Zygmunt Krauze
gave me the advice of a businessman who survived and prospered in different
oppressive political systems. Once I came
to visit him in Warsaw in 1962. At the
time I was suspicious that the Secret Police were tracking my steps so I was
especially paranoid to find that he was sitting at the kitchen table with a
policeman drinking vodka. I was
terrified that the policeman was waiting to arrest me. Zygmunt Krauze dismissed
my fear, and told me that he always had a bottle of vodka waiting for a
policeman in his home. It was just his
tradition, since a long time ago. He followed this tradition during German
occupation and he carried it over to the new Communist system. It was just second
nature for him. He could not drink vodka without a policeman. The police always
told him what was going on in the neighborhood and if there was any chance of his
property being searched.
Zygmunt Krauze
liked to show off his wealth, which at that time was evidenced by two luxurious
cars. One was a new Mercedes 220 and the other a Chevrolet Impala with large
impressive fins. Once he asked me and his niece Zofia to dinner at an
expensive, international hotel, known as Grant Hotel. In the 1960’s it was the only international
hotel in Warsaw. When we pulled up to the front of the hotel the porter opened
the door to his car greeting him as Mr. Director. In return, Uncle Krauze gave the doorman 500
zloty which was an extraordinarily high tip, taking into account that I, as an
assistant professor at the university was making 2000 zloty per month. When we
entered the restaurant, the headwaiter, the one who led us to the reserved
table got 1,000 zloty. I was flabbergasted by such a waste of money. Then Uncle
Krauze told me, that his tipping behavior had a deeper sense. First, these are not tips but investments. The
average, inexperienced person gives a bribe when he needs something to be done.
It is illegal and already too late. A bribe has to be given ahead of your needs.
Additionally, I should know that all the
tables in this restaurant are wired with microphones. The Secret Police are
listening to what is said and by whom. The head waiter will seat us at the table
where the microphone is disconnected or defective. He is worth his 1000 zloty.
Another time Uncle
Krauze gave me advice, when I was sure that I was the subject of a Secret Police
investigation. “Remember young man, the police know only as much as you tell
them.” He himself was bragging that he
was arrested seven times, but never convicted.
In 1965 I left
Poland for good. Occasionally, after I came to the U.S., he wrote to me. Here
is the last letter from him written from Austria. Apparently Uncle Krauze never
gave up and this time, under the guise of making money for his granddaughter he
went to Austria where he started another plantation, this time orchids.
Uncle Krauze
is not giving up (1974)
This letter written by Zygmunt Krauze has specifics of a person who
finished, or rather interrupted his education in 6th grade, but
nevertheless coveys the reality of character of the writer. In translation, I
tried to maintain his literary incorrect form.
Dear Zofia, Johnny and Descendant (our son Richard),
I have not written to you, I do not know how
long time, because during last ten years I was unemployed and
did not know what to do with myself
therefore being useless I did not like to mess-up the other people
minds.
It is possible that this helpless
unemployment would last until today if not the fact that Beatrice (his
granddaughter) decided to emigrate from Poland. Knowing how difficult it is for
a young person to manage life in the own country, it is still more difficult to
do it in the foreign land. Therefore, I decided to leave the country and get
oriented if there are some possibilities for creating individual working
condition (he meant her owning her own company). Leaving the country, I did not
know where I would settle. I also considered overseas countries. Therefore 7th the March 1972 in
the day of my birthday, I went by car to Czechoslovakia, Austria and to Italy,
but I stopped in Vienna. When over here I started to talk to variety of Jews
about the business. I had different propositions going to Lebanon, Libya and even
to Israel. I could depart as I stood if I was willing to join the company of
any sort, under condition that it will be company of my own invention. But I
did not left Poland to make some business for myself, but to find something
good for Beatrice. Because in the meantime this girl left medical studies and
transferred to gardening, I started to look for some object in this field. I was giving newspaper announcements; I
talked to intermediaries and concluded that in Austria there is much to do in
the field of gardening (horticulture).
Here in Austria they did not sell land
measured in acres or hectares, but in square meters because land here is very
expensive, and there is no land cheaper than $5 per square meter and in
addition, this depends where such land is located. In some situations, one
square meter of land can cost up to $100 per square meter. Many farms are abandoned and much land lay
vested, therefore I started looking around for renting. Because majority of land in Austria belongs
to Monasteries therefore there, I oriented my first steps. I was acquainted
with the head manager of large monastery holdings, but I noticed that he did
not trust me. Therefore, I proposed to him to travel to Poland, to Lodz, and
look over my daughter, Teresa, farm. When he returned, he was now looking for
me, not in reverse and he recalled that he has monastery owned farm next to the
highway from Vienna to Innsbruck at the road of Linz-Salzburg on the way to
Munich and Paris, in the place of Kemmelbach at the distance of 100 km from
Vienna. I was taken by this double doctor, because of economy and agriculture,
to Shift Melk, property of Benedictine Order. It was devastated farm with a
piece of a river flowing through it.
He proposed to me a free renting for the
first year and $50 per months for following year, what amounted to $600 per
year. Proposal was so attractive that I agreed to it without much thinking. I
rented this object for 15 years with extension of lease every year and started
renovation. However, it became obvious that the renovation is not worth the
money and it is better to demolish everything and built from scratch. This I did and in the beginning of June,
being exact the Fifth of June, we loaded to the newly constructed greenhouse
the first one thousands of orchards. Why
orchids? Because in meantime has come to me (from Poland), Voitek Dziomdziora,
who just finished horticulture academy and he just specializes in growing
orchards. Today we have in this greenhouse two thousand five hundred of orchids
in the flower pots each sells for $12 per pot. Three more empty greenhouse were
intended for more orchards , but in meantime in the same location was offered a
castle for negligent sum of $70,000
which had a living space of one thousand square meters ( about 10,000
square feet) together with park of 8,000 square meters. This was a reason that
we could not invest in next greenhouses. We paid the first $40,000 intended for
flowers to the castle owner as a first installment and the rest money we
promised to pay after the one year. I
was able to finalize this purchase, because of Victor who in mean time received
Austrian citizenship.
From the July we are living in own castle,
two of us together with Voitek, with own chapel for one hundred twenty seating
places. From August in this castle also lives Teresa (daughter) and Beatrice
(granddaughter). They are returning to Poland at the beginning next month. I am not sure if you know that Beatrice was
admitted to the Agriculture Academy in Warsaw with highest grade, in spite of
competition in which for one place ware competing 12 people.
Because the health of my wife has improved,
if I will be able to convince Irene whom you remember (caretaker of Kazimiera, wife of Zygmunt), I will
bring them both here, about Christmas time. This girl takes care of my wife
from the beginning of her sickness and without her my wife does not want to
move anywhere. They advised me not to return to Poland, because they may not to
let me out again and here we have more and more debt. Without me they were not
able to manage and new heating system which we expect to be installed next week
will cost us $20,000 while the trading of flowers will take place next year.
If any of you will be passing through Europe,
please stop by, because I am not able to move until about year 1975, when all
business will be in the full motion.
My address: 3373 Kemmelbach,
Austria, phone 07412-302
Yours Zygmunt
Nordic saga about Lena
The following adventure has its source in my
affinity for the university town, Uppsala, where I spent my sexually formative
years: 1960-1968. For many years after my emigration to the U.S., I was drawn
to this town, to reminiscence and visit old friends and girlfriends. There was
an additional element, less romantic but more political. Because for many years
I could not visit Poland during the reign of Communism in Poland, Uppsala
became a substitute for my real European hometown Czestochowa and later
Wroclaw, both located in Poland.
This particular “pilgrimage” to Uppsala
happened to be in 1987. As in the past I
decided to visit a night club “Baldachin,” proud of its “B” category with a
dance floor frequented by young and not-so-young ladies seeking male companionship. Dancing couples had there a chance to
exchange glances, like in the sentimental song by Frank Sinatra. . . If there were exchanges of pecuniary nature
I did not know, because being parsimonious I always took advantage of free
offers or “left-overs” from my dancing partners. At the entrance to Baldachin, gentlemen had to
pay 10 crown, while ladies could get in for free. It was a very wise pricing
decision, assuring a surplus of ladies which in turn made this place more
attractive for paying male customers. To keep up the club’s esteemed status of
category B, gentlemen were required to wear a jacket and necktie. If visitors
arrived without such attire, they could always rent them, for a few crowns,
from the coat room attendant. This evening, about 9 p.m., I arrived appropriately
dressed to this club in a rental car, a Volkswagen Golf painted in
non-descriptive, camouflaged color of yellowish-green.
Scanning the dimly lit club environment, I
noticed two promising single ladies, sitting at a table, sipping cheap Swedish
light beer. Without hesitation, as the party was already in full swing, I
approached one of them asking for a dance. Her name was Lena. Dancing with her I hardly noticed the passage
of time and soon, at 1a.m. we could hear the announcement that in 10 minutes the
Club was closing and patrons should leave. Lena and her friend insisted on
leaving immediately, as the last bus to the suburb where they lived was leaving
in 15 min. Being a gentleman, as I always was at that time, I offered to drive the
young ladies home—an offer they accepted without reservation. After a 20 minute
drive we arrived to a housing development in the suburbs, which was completely
new to me. It was recently built and remained to me a maze. It constituted a large
number of wooden homes, all painted dark red, resembling the color of red beets
borsch. The houses were built around
grassy squares. Each square unit was connected to a similar one by short
passage. How many such square units were in the development I do not know, but
there were many. Each square had its own
parking lot. One way or another all the houses were identical and could only be
distinguished by house numbers, which were not visible at night.
My new acquaintances, grateful for a lift,
invited me in for tea. I didn’t really know what they had in mind, but I kept
all options open. When I entered their kitchen and sat at the table, I realized
that I was still dressed in the sweaty jacket and crumpled necktie. I didn’t feel comfortable; therefore I
excused myself with a need to return to my car where I had a much more
comfortable cotton sweater. Leaving Lena’s
home I noticed that in the whole square, only one lamp was lit and it was the
lamp on Lena’s front door. It took me only 5 minutes to get my sweater but when
I returned to the square where I assumed Lena’s home was located, to my
surprise I found not one but three homes illuminated by lights. I got confused. Did I miss the right address
and enter the wrong square, or had some other residents turned lights on? I knocked
on the door of one home with a light on, which I took for the home of Lena, but
a rude male voice threatened me with police if I did not stop bothering him. In
view of my obvious failure, I decided to give up on Lena’s tea, find my car and
drive back to my hotel. Unfortunately, finding my car was equally as difficult
as finding Lena’s home. I wandered from
one parking lot to another to no avail. I
started panicking that I would never find my car. I even forgot how it looked
and what color it was. Finally at 4 a.m.,
after two hours of aimless wandering I stumbled across my car with my two
friends standing next to it. They were worried that I was mugged or died,
because I was gone for such a long time while the car was still here in the
parking lot. I tried to explain to the young ladies all the confusion I went
through was due to the obsession of Swedish architects with symmetry of looks.
I felt that my explanation did not look believable and that they had suspicions
that I may be gay and afraid of female company.
By this time we were all very tired and there
was no time or temptation to prove that I was a heterosexual, who basically
prefers relations in duality of souls, but in extreme situation would challenge
myself to a threesome known otherwise in French as a “Ménage a Trois.” I collected
from Lena her mailing address and departed to my hotel to rest after the eventful
night, or what was left of it. The next day I had a flight to Columbus. On the plane I was tormented by the
recollections of this nightmarish night in Uppsala. After arriving home in Columbus I tried to
rationalize my behavior in Uppsala to no avail. Finally, I decided to put thing straight and
prove to Lena, that my intentions toward her were honorable and heterosexual. I
called Lena on the phone and asked her if she would consider visiting me in
Columbus for two weeks to continue the process of deeper acquaintance including
intimate relations. Lena was not against it, but insisted that I undergo AIDS
testing, as apparently subversive anti-American propaganda portrayed Americans
as especially prone to infection by this disease. My desertion from two willing females justified
her suspicions that I could be, if not homosexual then maybe, bisexual.
In this situation, when both my male honor and
Polish-American patriotism were at stake, I succumbed to her demands to undergo
blood testing for AIDS. To obtain satisfactory documentation I went to the local
“Urgent Care” facility with a request to obtain a clean bill of health. I have to mention that at that time, to get a
reliable test one had to deliver 100mL of blood, which was then sent to a
distant laboratory for analysis. The doctor
who drained my blood asked me with a degree of curiosity of my sexual orientation,
because in his experience he did not yet meet any heterosexual patients
infected with AIDS. I assured him that I
was heterosexual and I could produce a list of female witnesses to this effect.
I had to explain to the doctor that I was just conforming to the specific
demand of some Swedish blond-haired woman, who misinterpreted American health
statistics. The doctor commented with a
quip, that he hoped that my Swedish Blond was worthy of my 100 mL of blood.
After two weeks I received a clean bill of health
and called Lena that I had the appropriate document and she was most welcome.
We agreed to the date and I sent her a return ticket from Stockholm to
Columbus. By the time Lena arrived a
snowy winter had already descended on Columbus.
I picked her up at the Columbus Airport and we arrived to my home, a
medium-sized, two-story house with three bedrooms and a large living room. I purchased this home 10 years after the
divorce from my second wife.
This particular day the snow was already piling
up with snow flurries visible through the window. Lena decided to take a shower in the upstairs
bathroom and shortly after promisingly dressed in a nightgown descended to the
small library where I was watching TV, awaiting the expected challenges with
Lena. To my surprise I noticed Lena’s strange behavior. She was shaking all
over with fear. I was flabbergasted. “What
is wrong with you?” I asked. “You don’t
need to fear me. I have the appropriate official document on which you
insisted.” Somehow Lena did not pay attention to my document certifying me as
AIDS free. She exhibited symptoms of an unreasonable
fear. Finally, she revealed that whenever she saw snow falling she got this
way. I was surprised, because in Sweden snow falls most of the year and it is
much deeper than in Columbus, Ohio. She followed with an explanation, that she
was once married and is now divorced from her Swedish husband. When the snow
fell, her husband grabbed the snow shovel and started hitting the furniture. I
did not ask if his rage was concentrated only on furniture or if he also
occasionally hit her. Lena explained that her husband was angry that he had to
go outside and shovel the snow from the driveway. Apparently Lena made unfortunate association
between snow and all males, married or not. I just became a victim of her past
experiences with her neurotic husband, or probably more likely, a neurotic
couple.
Immediately my sexual desire was put on hold
and I lost desire to make love to a woman shaking with fear. I allocated her to the spare guest bedroom and
for her sanity to return in the morning. In the morning Lena was no longer trembling
but refused any physical approach. The following days were no better. My original
plan to redeem myself sexually became an obvious failure. Platonic relations based on intellectual
conversations were also not possible, because her English was very poor and my Swedish
was equally as bad. I started counting the
days to her departure. I was even thinking how to accelerate it by refusing to
feed her. After some deliberation I decided to keep starvation in reserve in
case she decide to extend her stay beyond two weeks airline ticket reservation
dates. To kill time, and divert my attention I decided to take her to Florida
and from there for a short cruise to the Bahamas. Unfortunately, the first day
in the Bahamas I fell asleep on the beach and got severely sunburned with
swollen lips and deep welts on my face.
I developed an aversion to light and started
shaking similar to the way Lena did when confronted by a man and snow. When we
returned to Columbus, it was time for Lena to depart. I took her to the airport
three hours before her scheduled flight, kissed her cheek lightly with my
swollen lips, and wished her all the best. I ran immediately to my car afraid
that Lena may change her mind and her attitude. I had a joy and relief that I
got rid of Lena and learned the lesson that “One should not buy a Swedish Blond
in a poke,” meaning that I should have gotten to know her a bit better before
inviting her to my bed. As to the Clean Health Certificate the money was not
completely wasted. I framed it and hung it next to my king-sized bed. It made a
positive impact on subsequent, American and some Polish visitors (all female).
Interestingly, when Lena returned home to
Uppsala, she wrote me a letter that she had made a mistake in being so
resistive to my advances, and invited me to visit her when I was in Uppsala again. I didn’t answer
her letter nor did I take advantage of her invitation. One meeting with Lena
was enough. Now after many years, I have become more philosophical. After all, Lena contributed a story to my
memoirs.
Stan,
European painter
The story of another Polish emigrant.
Stan K. should rather be called Stasiek which
in English translates as Stanley, but he decided to Americanize his first name
and insisted on being called Stan. Stan was a recent immigrant from Poland, in
fact he was from the province of Poznan and came to the U.S. sponsored by a Baptist
Church from a Transient Camp in Austria, after Communist Poland, in short time
of magnanimity, let such people like
Stan leave the country and look for greener pastures in the west. At the time
of his arrival to the U.S. he was not even 30 and had with him a young
attractive wife and two small children. He posed as a political refugee, and the
story of his religious persecution in Poland he purchased from another, more
experienced “refugee” who had already obtained an American immigration visa.
His persecution story cost him just half a liter
of Polish vodka, Czysta Wyborowa (Clear-Excellent) and it was sufficiently
convincing to the American Consul, because he was speedily granted an American
immigration visa. When he arrived in Columbus, Ohio he could not find employment
in his profession, mostly because he had none. In Poland he worked some time as a guide and
dance organizer for the Workers’ Trade Union, which organized two weeks
vacations for his members in the mountains. In Poland, he also went to school for
agriculture, but didn’t finish it and devoted his time for dances and trips for
the vacationing workers, where he was also able to benefit from better food and
especially alcoholic beverages. He could
sing too. Not too many songs, but the most attractive was a medieval student
song, in Latin, Gaudeamus Igitur. He sang this song in Latin, but did not care
nor did he understand its meaning. He realized that singing a student song,
especially in Latin, implied that he had graduated from University.
In Columbus, at the time of booming economy,
he found work as a helper in a small company making kitchen cabinets.
Obviously, he was not happy with this menial work and had higher intellectual
aspirations. He lived close to my company, on the same street, and knew that I
was a successful businessman who could share with him methods how to get rich
fast.
He had to make rapid decisions, because his
wife had no desire to continue on as the wife of a low-paid laborer. I observed that she had some intellectual
ambitions of her own, because she let another Polish man, this time a visiting
professor of mathematics, to keep his hand between her legs, while at the same
time she was engaged in a livid conversation with her husband, sitting just
across from her, on the other side of the table. One way or another, under the
pressure of the situation, he had to change professions for something more
intellectual. Painting came to his mind,
when he became inspired by visiting a gallery nearby on Lane Avenue. In fact,
at the same location there were two galleries. One selling posters, another paintings—mostly
new, but styled as 19th century English paintings. Posters were not
of much interest to Stan, because these were sold for less than $100. With oil
paintings the situation looked more promising. They sold for $300, if they were
size 50 x 50 cm, and $700 or more if they were larger. Most of the paintings were landscapes, people
on horses, villages and peasants harvesting crops in the field.
So one day Stan came to my office with such
knowledge, looking for advice, how to convert his brilliant idea into hard
cash. “Howdy!” He said, sitting in the
arm chair in front of my desk. “I know
that you have “kiepele” (a mind for business) and you can advise me how to
convert my idea into cash.”
“So, you intend to trade paintings?” I asked.
“No, I intend to paint myself.”
“Did you ever paint before?” I asked.
“Yes, when I was 14 I painted flowers for my
grandma’s birthday, and she liked it. I
assure you, I am a fast learner. I can
learn anything, anytime, anywhere. Besides, on the Public Television I noticed
that every Saturday, one fellow teaches people how to paint. I made a recording
of 10 hours of his teachings. It takes him less than one hour to paint one
picture, such 50cm x 50cm and he is an old man, nearly 60. I am young, I can
paint faster. Maybe at the beginning it will take me two hours to paint one
picture, but after some training, I can do one picture in 70 minutes.”
“Did you ask the owner of the gallery, if he
is interested in your paintings?”
“Sure. I asked him if he was interested in
European art, but I didn’t tell him that I would paint these pictures myself. I
just told him that these would be the modern European paintings, because I
decided that nobody likes old pictures, with horses and horse buggies, which
look like used merchandise. I will paint pictures with cars and airplanes. I told the owner of the gallery that I would
sell him European art, because I am European, which everybody can see, judging
from my European (meaning Polish) accent.”
“So Stan, you already have a plan and I
cannot add to it or subtract from it. How I can help you?”
“My problem is with the frames.”
“Frames?” I said.
“Yes. All the pictures in the gallery had frames. To be sellable my pictures must have frames. I
went to the local K-mart store looking for appropriate, golden frames, and
after close inspection I realized that they all had embossed on the back “Made
in China” or “Made in Hong-Kong.” I
couldn’t sell my “European” pictures with such frames. Nobody would believe
that it is European art. They will think it is cheap Chinese counterfeit art.”
I had to help Stan with his dilemma, and help
myself to get rid of him. So I said, “Stan, I am sure that the owner of the gallery
has his own framing outfit and will be glad to get your picture without frames.
You really have a good idea.”
“I can give him a 10% discount from regular
prices if he purchases from me pictures without frames,” said Stan. I decided
to be magnanimous, and did not ask Stan for any commission from his sales or
any money for my advice. Stan was very happy when he left my office. I haven’t seen him since. I am not sure if he
is still with his wife, or if he returned to Poland. In new Poland there are now a lot of
opportunities, if not for modern painters then for business consultants. Maybe
Stan made it big in Poland. Some people did.
Jews in
Lwow, summer 1942
By Stefan Ehrlich in his own
writing
|
Congratulations from local
paper to Stefan for his US citizenship
|
However, my mother was scheduled to follow
both my grandmothers to the gas chambers of Belzec. My grandmothers, in their turn, had followed
my father, who was killed just after the Germans occupied Lvov and before the
gas chambers were even constructed at Belzec.
When my grandmothers were killed, my mother
received a temporary exemption as the homemaker for two workers employed by the
Germans, but it was clear that this luxury could not be extended much
longer. Thus, I suggested to my mother
that we try to obtain a set of Aryan papers - false identities - and try to save
ourselves. Her reply was: “No, if we do
nothing illegal, the whole burden of guilt will fall on ‘Those Responsible.’”
“Those Responsible?”
She was not referring to the Nazis, but
rather to those with the power to save us from disaster. Certainly the Nazis were like an arsonist who
is responsible for every victim of the fire he sets, whatever the victim’s
behavior may be in response to the impending peril. But there were also those who had it in their
power to quench the flames that were consuming the Jews of Europe, yet they
failed to act. More accurately perhaps,
we should say that they stoked the fire.
“Those Responsible.”
Who were those fire fighters whom my mother
wanted to hold responsible—even if it meant forfeiting a slim chance of
survival which the Aryan papers could give?
Why was it so important to hold them responsible? What could be more important than the
preservation of life?
I did not dare to ask. The answers seemed unimportant since I also
appeared to have no chance of living to help to make Those Responsible
accountable for the death of my mother and my people. Having rejected the chance to survive we
could only await death and hope that Those Responsible would be brought to
reckoning by the ultimate victory of humanity in which my mother so firmly
believed. She had not the slightest
doubt that the truth would well up in due course and that the assignment of
responsibility would prevent further massacres.
To this end we were to be sure to do nothing illegal or unethical so as
not to obscure the guilt of Those Responsible.
We had merely to await our demise.
I recall clearly the day when death
approached my mother. I had received a
sure indication of its imminence. Every day, while walking to the Governor’s
mansion through the German quarters of Lvov, I passed by a sprawling
high-school building where gendarmes [part of the German civil police, whose
units were also termed Schutzpolizei (Protective Police) and Ordnungspolizei
(Order Maintenance Police)] were billeted.
In the mornings, most of them were still there. One day, in August 1942, the billet was
empty. Only a few gendarmes were inside, sweeping the floor among the
bunks. This peaceful sight was
desperately, even physiologically, oppressive to me. Only the pressure of a heart attack,
experienced many years later, could compare with its burden. I said nothing to my little sister.
I still saw no gendarmes in the billet when
passing by in the evening on the way back to the ghetto. My anxiety grew as I approached the ghetto
gate. In a previous action (deportation
to the gas chambers) against elderly people, a sweep that had taken both my
grandmothers, the gendarmes had loaded their victims onto trucks at the gate,
to transport them to the railway terminal.
Wooden stairs were placed at the back of the truck. The old ladies lined up before the stairs and
as they were stepping up, the gendarme would offer each lady his hand with a
polite bow and help her to climb. Observing this scene I could not help
recalling what my grandmother had told me once about the unusually courteous
police of Imperial Berlin. Noticing a
lady who might require assistance in boarding a streetcar, a policeman would
approach, give her his hand with a polite bow, and help her up. Now Berlin had come to us, to Lvov, complete
with the polite bow.
But this time there were no trucks at the gate. I felt a flicker of hope which was quenched
as I entered the ghetto. The action was going on and this time the trucks had
not been provided only because the homemakers for the workers were relatively
young and they were able to walk to the distant railroad terminal. The gendarmes along with Ukrainian police
were guarding little groups of housewives standing on the sidewalk by the
sidewall of the house. More women were
added to these groups as the gendarmes and the police led them out of the
houses.
Approaching home I noticed that my mother was
not standing by the wall. Hope flickered
again. It burst into a flame as I
entered the apartment. My mother was
there. She was as collected as
ever. She sat at the table with a
gendarme. They were sipping vishniak,
home-made cherry brandy, a bottle of which my mother had saved from my
grandmother’s farm, and were immersed in friendly conversation. My mother’s behavior was so relaxed that I
was sure that she had bribed the gendarme who would no doubt leave her behind;
surely they were “watering the deal,” as Poles say.
When the bottle was drained, the gendarme
rose to leave, as I expected, but my mother was going with him. There was nothing in her behavior to indicate
that she was going to her execution. There
was nothing tense in her smile and nothing artificial in the friendly tone of
her conversation with the policeman. She
behaved just as she did every day. She
looked as if she were merely stepping out to see her genial visitor off, to
return in a moment.
She was also as aware of us, her children, as
she always was. Seeing our shocked
faces, my mother comforted us with a few parting words: “Remember, I taught you
how to work.” And indeed we continued
our landscaping work under the direction of Mr. Sommer, a former gardener at
the Kaiser Wilhelm Gardens in Berlin.
The Nazis expelled him to Poland, where he became the gardener of the
Jewish Cemetery in Lvov. There the planting of rare and beautiful plants over
graves had replaced the erection of monuments, forbidden to those of Jewish
religion.
At this time the Jewish inmates of the
Janowska Street camp in Lvov were busy removing gravestones, which were ground
up for road construction, while we were transferring the most valuable plants
from the cemetery to the Governor’s garden.
The day after my mother went to her death I sowed grass on the new lawn
and pressed the bed while tears flowed down my cheeks. The Governor passed by and looked straight
through me.
Because this garden was watered with my tears,
I remember well the plants placed there by my sister, the plants we discussed
with Mr. Sommer. I came to cherish this
garden. One of the first things I did
upon returning to Lvov after the liberation in October, 1944, was to go and
look at it. I was anxious. Anything might have happened. I was reassured to see that the mansion had
become a center for the Young Naturalists, the Soviet equivalent of the 4-H
Club, and everything was maintained in good order.
The work at the Governor’s mansion kept my little
sister and me alive until the end of 1942.
I tried to find Aryan papers, a false ID, for my sister, but it was hard
to find a source. We had lived in
Przemysl before the War and had no friends in Lvov, which was some 60 miles
distant. The few acquaintances, who
might know of a forger, would scarcely reveal his address to an outsider. They were afraid that under torture we could
betray not only the forger but also the person who recommended him. This was an awkward situation, because help
and shelter could be forthcoming when one merely had a single piece of Aryan
ID, even something lacking a photograph, such as a certificate of baptism on
which the sex and age corresponded to the person carrying it.
Such an opportunity was once presented to me
by an advertisement published by the management of a group of farms in the Lvov
area, looking for laborers. This
advertisement was clearly directed at Jews, because very few Aryans would
exchange Lvov for a farm during that period of acute labor shortages, despite
the promises of high wages and abundant food, presumably added to mislead the
Gestapo.
I went to the Lvov office of this farm group
and met a polite and cultivated lady who agreed to hire my sister and me on the
spot, but she wanted to see our IDs. When I said we had none, she asked with
anxiety and compassion: “Not a single piece of paper?” When I confessed our lack of documentation,
the woman’s eyes darkened sadly. By
hiring us without any ID, she risked that both she and the farm manager, with their
families, would be hanged beside us, should we ever be exposed. According to the pleasant custom of the times
the manager would no doubt have a poster attached to his chest, reading “King
of the Jews” or “Jewish Uncle.”
Meanwhile, a new action against the ghetto
approached. All was uncertainty.
Speculations about whose IDs would be honored this time flew
around. A neighbor asked me to show him
my ID. He was concerned that the seal of
the German Eagle was blue. Those working
for war industries had red seals.
Mr. Sommer realized that our end was
approaching. Despite this, or maybe because of it, he shared with me his
cherished secret for growing lush and fragrant cyclamens, hoping that maybe I
would survive. We had landscaped the
mansion by December. Workers from the
city parks came one day to ascertain where the tools were and to assess what
remained to be done. They told us that
they would maintain the garden: we were no longer needed.
Next morning, Jewish police knocked at our
door, wanting to see our IDs. They
looked at the blue seals and told us that we had to go along with them. We went, my little sister, her friend (the
daughter of neighbors who shared our apartment), and I. This girl had also worked in the Governor’s
garden, upon my recommendation, and she had lost her protection at the same
time we did.
The police led us from hallway to hallway,
and left us with one or two guards while the rest of them spread over the
house. Our group grew very slowly and
the policemen were getting anxious.
Clearly, they were below their quota.
When we stood in the hallway of a former post office building converted
to apartments, another policeman caught up with us. He had an order from an
officer of the Jewish police, a friend of our neighbors, to release their
daughter. This policeman also told my
little sister that an order would come later to release her. I knew well enough that this would not
happen. The policeman guarding us became
very anxious when he had to release the other girl: an officer was no less
responsible for the quota than were his men.
Our neighbors evidently paid a high price for this release order.
In an attempt to make up the deficit, the
policeman guarding us peeked through a slit in the door to spot any victim who
might cross the street looking for better shelter. As he turned his back on us,
I noticed that in one wing of the swinging door behind us the large glass pane
was missing. It was possible to pass this silently. I indicated the missing pane to my sister,
intimating that she could go. She
shrugged: no. She was right. There was no access from the hallway to any
back door which would lead to the courtyard or an alley. The hallway of the post office opened only to
the staircase, to the policemen.
Moreover, my sister probably thought there was hope, however faint, that
the order releasing her might come. Our
neighbors had never lied before.
I passed through the missing windowpane. I could hear the police rummaging above, so I
went downstairs, to the basement. I
found myself in a little hallway, lit by a bare bulb. The only door led to a basement apartment and
was closed and probably locked. A
cupboard filled almost half of the basement.
A galvanized tub for bathing children was on top of the cupboard, bottom
up. This was the only object offering
shelter. I lifted myself to the edge of the cupboard and slid under the tub.
After a time I heard a frantic rush of steps
on the staircase above. Apparently, the
police had concluded their search, come down to the hallway and discovered that
I was missing. It seemed inevitable that
in a moment they would be in the basement and discover my whereabouts. However, they searched only upstairs, up and
down and up again, but they never entered the basement. Finally, their bustle ceased. The gate
squeaked. I heard the shuffling of the
victims leaving the hallway. This was
the last I heard of my little sister. I
stayed under the tub, half-stunned half-dozing, oblivious of time.
Then the door of the basement apartment opened
and a young woman appeared in the hallway.
As I looked, she went to a little niche in the wall, half a foot above
the concrete floor, and began to remove some of the usual bric-a-brac that is
typically crammed onto basement shelves: an oil lamp, some bottles of household
cleaners. When the shelves were empty,
she removed them too. Then she removed
the wall behind the shelves. One after
another, middle-aged Jews began to appear through the opening. When they were all in the hallway I made my
appearance. They were less than
enthusiastic upon seeing me, complaining of how much they had paid for their
shelter, but nevertheless they were forced to accept my presence.
It transpired that they were relatives of
officers in the Jewish police force.
They shared comfortable apartments in the modern post office building
and they had been spared during previous actions. However, in this action designed to liquidate
the ghetto, only the officers’ wives and children received exemptions and the
police paid for this favor with our blood.
The young woman who opened the shelter was apparently one of the
officers’ wives. The folks sharing the
shelter with me explained that the Jewish policemen knew of its existence and
were ordered not to search in the basement. This is why they did not look for
me there.
In subsequent searches of the week-long
action, the Ukrainian police, gendarmes, and the SS went down to the basement
but failed to find the shelter masked by the little shelves crammed with
junk. The windows of the basement were
covered over with brickwork, nominally to protect against bombing. The brick was cleverly raised a millimeter or
two above the sidewalk on which it was supposed to rest. This was done for ventilation but also it
gave a glimpse of the nailed soles of the jackboots of our oppressors. When danger passed, a bulb was lit in
daytime, when it could not betray us. During the week of deportation I spent
the time reading.
Finally the sweep ended. I went outside and was dazzled by the
light. On the walls, posters signed by
the SS Brigadefuehrer and General Major der Polizei Katzmann, the commander of
police in Galicia, proclaimed the liquidation of the ghetto. Exempted workers in war industries were
ordered to resettle by a given date into their separate fenced compounds,
arranged according to factories. Others
would be mopped up before the ghetto buildings were converted to other uses.
Our neighbors were still in our apartment as
I came back from my shelter, but they soon left with the Aryan papers which
ultimately saved the family. I had
nothing else to do during these last days of respite, but to continue looking
for Aryan papers as I sold my family’s clothing, in order to pay for the
documents. I sold the clothes to Jewish
merchants who resold them out of the ghetto.
At this time, when the ghetto was being
liquidated, there were no police to enforce order: the police were against
us. In spite of that nobody stole. This is a remarkable but seldom-emphasized
fact about the ghettos. Stolen clothing could be sold. It was money.
It was food. Sometimes, it was life.
Yet there was none of the looting which blackouts and other dislocations
incite in American cities. My quest
for Aryan papers was as futile as ever.
The responses were consistently negative and I slowly resigned myself to
ending my days in the Janowska Street camp to which young men were assigned in
the actions. Unexpectedly, a man who was
barely known to me was compassionate enough to give me an address. By this time he could dare to do so, because
the forgers would be gone before I would have the chance to be caught and
tortured, and thus I could not betray anyone. Neither could I betray him, since
he was also leaving. This was the end of
the ghetto.
The forgers lived in a single family home
with garden, belonging to a Polish street car worker, similar to a modest home
in America. The owner had been forced to
leave because the design of the ghetto fence so demanded and the forgers apparently
had enough clout and money to have this home assigned to them. They were two brothers with marked Jewish
features. To survive they no doubt
needed every cent of the stack of bank notes lying on the table as I entered. I had little to contribute to this hoard, but
they told me that forging a Soviet internal passport (still used by Aryans) was
400 zloty. I did possess that much. Initially I wanted to have my own passport
forged, because this would leave the photograph in place, but unfortunately, it
was filled out with a very bold pen stroke.
Erasing it would have visibly damaged the delicate fibers embedded in
the paper designed to prevent forging. I
found somebody else’s passport abandoned on the floor in the hallway of our
house and gave it to the forgers along with the payment, which had to be made
in advance. I also had my old passport
photograph copied; the photographer still functioned in the sinking
ghetto. The forgers promptly altered the
entries but the passport was delayed because of some problems in communication
with the Aryan partner who applied the dry stamp to the photograph. He had
apparently stolen it as the Soviet police were running away.
In the meantime I had my teeth repaired. The dentist did his job as carefully and
quietly as ever. His hand did not
tremble, although the date of his execution was posted outside on the wall: the
last day by which the exempted workers had to be in their compounds. The help of these condemned people, their
quiet courage in performing their job to the last moment was a revelation. They
shared their last hours of respite with others.
The money they received for their services was irrelevant. How much could they earn within these last
days? They did not even raise their
prices. The little I could afford could
not save the photographer, the forgers, or the dentist. What they did was an offering, a sacrifice,
which has never been properly honored.
Few people would have the nerve to work, and work quietly and well, when
condemned, and watching the hours ebb away like water flows into a sinking
ship, like blood flows from a wound.
Time was more than money in the sinking ghetto. Time was life, and they shared life. Their resistance gave a chance to all they
served and it helped some of us survive.
The image of these nameless heroes was
revived in my memory by Zionist and Jewish American effusions denouncing our
people as cowards; because they went to their execution like sheep; because
they did not resist. Were these
detractors so ignorant as not to realize what resistance meant in this context? Did they not hear Hitler’s bellow that he
would rid Europe of every last Jew? Did
they not realize the magnitude of the resources that he diverted for this
purpose? Might they not realize how
important every hour of respite was to us?
Nobody could have survived without being given time to prepare for
eluding the Gestapo which pursued any Jew trying to survive as doggedly as it
did the conspirators of the armed Resistance?
And do our detractors not realize that the
thousands who survived by working for the Germans until the liberation would
have been doomed by any useless demonstrations?
Dr. Stefan Ehrlich survived the
German Holocaust and after the war was studying Agriculture Husbandry in
Poland. He published well- known book in Poland book about Husbandry of Nutria. After the war he married Maria, an Orthodox -
Christian woman and they had two children, who on her insistence were also
brought in Christian faith. According to Stefan, Maria during the war, as a
very young woman, sheltered and saved five Jewish women.
In
the 1950s they emigrated to Israel, but apparent religious bias against Maria,
who refused to convert herself and children to Judaism, made their life in
Israel difficult. At the end they relocated to the U.S., first to Chicago and
later to Columbus, Ohio where I met them in 1968. Dr. Ehrlich was working for
many years in Chemical Abstracts and was fluent in many languages. He also knew
a lot about Jewish, Polish and World history.
In
his memoires he refers, after his mother to “Those Responsible.” Now
it is too late to ask Stefan who “Those Responsible” were but he mentioned that
his mother was waiting for some kind of invitation from a Zionist organization
to travel to Palestine. The invitation
never materialized and the whole Stefan family was killed by German-Nazis.
After
retirement, Stefan developed an obsession with getting rich by making “great
inventions.” Surprisingly his inventions never dealt with small matters and
never dealt with biology in which he excelled. Instead he intended to change
the technology on a global scale such as power transmission via fiber optics or
converting deserts into gardens. He
became gullible and prone to exploitation by fellow immigrants, both from
Russia and Poland. He would pay them to promote his inventions. Often his wife,
Maria called me asking for help to bring a common sense to Stefan, who
otherwise would be cheated by imposters, preying on his gullibility. He died in August 2005 in Columbus, Ohio. I
lost in him a good friend.
Jan Czekajewski
Where are we now?
The stories in this book are vignettes of my personal and business life
for the last 70 years, including the 42 years since I formed Columbus
Instruments International Corporation. Now, in 2012, we are living in turbulent
times with never-ending crises which engulf more and more countries of the
world. Its origin could be traced to unsustainable debt promoted by big banks,
governments and even individuals. Fortunately I did not succumb to this
temptation of borrowing money for business expansion or for living beyond my
means. Therefore Columbus Instruments is still a small company but I can sleep
without worry of bankruptcy. Lack of debt keeps Columbus Instruments reasonably
healthy; although, being part of a world economy we depend on the needs and
financial health of our customers. Fortunately, for many years, approximately
50% of our sales come from exports therefore we are less dependent on the
health of the American economy. In this book I mention some of the employees
who contributed to Columbus Instruments’ success. I could not mention them all
because over these 42 years there have been a few hundred of them, some living,
others have passed away. I would like to thank all of them for their
contributions toward the vitality of our company.
Jan
Czekajewski.
|
Jan with Polish President,
leader of “Solidarity” Lech Walesa (2012)
|
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Columbus Instruments aerial
view
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