Rick “Ski” Rudzinski knew just what to do after a criminal’s associates had threatened to “get” one of his fellow detectives in a local footy match. He decided to go along to the game himself and, from the sidelines, watch out for his mate, then Elizabeth detective and now chief inspector, Peter Graham.
In the end, no outside-the-rules attack ever came, so Ski never had to drag anyone off of his young colleague, the amateur footballer. But, until the final siren sounded, he had remained ready to play out the protector role in case trouble struck.
Ski’s care and compassion for friends came as a natural extension of his strongly held view of life: that it revolved around family. Sadly, his own beloved family lost him on January 27, when he died of heart failure. He was 76.
More than anything else in his past, Ski’s tumultuous beginnings shaped his character. Born, raised and educated in Poland, he survived, and escaped, war-ravaged Europe – by himself.
To flee Soviet-dominated Poland for Germany – where he wound up in a camp for displaced persons – the then 20-year-old had to swim across a freezing river in a cold European winter. Shivering in his underclothes on the river bank, he almost turned back, until others making the same escape encouraged him to continue.
From the German camp, he took flight to Italy, where he boarded a ship bound for Australia. And, after it docked in Adelaide in 1949, Ski stepped onto Australian soil, with nothing more than a small suitcase of personal items and the clothes on his back.
Able to speak many languages, but not a word of English, he went into a Glenelg North migrant hostel with others who had escaped post-war Europe. With some formal training he had had as a cook in Poland,
he scored work as a chef in the hostel and, later, in Adelaide nightclubs and hotels, including the South Australian.
Ski would meet his future wife, Joyce, as he and two of his friends from the hostel took a walk along Jetty Rd, Glenelg. Joyce was herself out walking with two of her friends when the three approached, asking: “Parlez-vous Français; sprechen sie Deutsch?”
The communication might not have worked, but Joyce’s flaming red hair in the sunshine had Ski hooked. He commandeered her lipstick, drew a heart on the ground with it, and gestured for her to meet him again the next day. The two married six months later in 1950.
Joyce went about teaching Ski to speak English, and, with his aptitude for learning foreign languages, she never found the task too onerous. He was keen to learn so he could establish himself in a career.
Besides his jobs as a chef, he worked as a bricklayer and bus driver. But, with his cookery experience, Ski thought he might set up Joyce and himself in the hotel business.
That plan changed after his English had improved and he had begun to move in wider circles. He met a policeman from whom he learned about life as a cop, and soon decided law enforcement was the job for him.
So, with his Polish accent, black slicked-back hair and TV-cop looks, the 29-year-old, and by then father of two, joined SAPOL in 1958.
Adept in eight languages, Ski often served as an interpreter for victims and witnesses, and for his colleagues in cases of non-English-speaking offenders.
By the early 1960s he had become a detective, and spent terms in the Anti-Larrikin and General squads. In 1966, he transferred to Renmark CIB, where he and his young family revelled in the country lifestyle.
In 1969, the family returned to metropolitan Adelaide and moved into a police house, as Ski began a 10-year stint with Elizabeth CIB. Chief Insp Peter Graham became his partner in 1972.
“I was to learn much over the next two years from a man who had experienced so much in life,” he says.
“He was a great person, who just understood life so well and had a great understanding of human nature. He could read people.
“Perhaps his own early life and hardships had given him greater understanding and appreciation of people in times of crises.”
Chief Insp Graham saw the worth of that Rudzinski ability to read people in cases the two undertook together. One of their investigations led them to a paedophile, whom they arrested for repeated sexual assaults on a teenaged boy with an intellectual disability.
Time ticked by as Chief Insp Graham interviewed the offender, who denied the allegations and seemed highly unlikely to confess. During a couple of breaks, however, Ski urged his young partner to continue.
Says Chief Insp Graham: “Rick got me outside the room, and said: ‘I know he’s going to roll over’. He had an absolute sense of it. He knew this guy was going to give in – and he did.”
As well as his knack for predicting human behaviour, Ski brought much humour to his colleagues. After he and Chief Insp Graham quelled a pub brawl between RAAF recruits and local hoodlums, Ski lined up the 20-odd young military men outside.
“From the front passenger seat of the CIB car,” says Chief Insp Graham, “he bellowed like a sergeant major, and double-marched them back to the RAAF base. The RAAF police took possession of their personnel – delivered in formation. The recruits were glad to be rescued from ‘Rick’s command’.”
Ski’s accent and phraseology led to the creation of “Ski-isms” and, consequently, more humour among his colleagues. Like a good Aussie, he always used the word mate, but, from his lips, it came out as “moit”.
And, before he lived in his Sellicks home – which he built up from a shack – he would tell his workmates that, on his days off, he was “going to the ‘shag’.”
Often one to go home for a meal midway through his shift at Elizabeth, Ski would first call his wife to say: “Get da tucker on, Joyce.”
“The word (shag) generated much merriment among his workmates,” says Chief Insp Graham, “and many Ski-isms became part of the Elizabeth CIB language. Former members of the section still refer to ‘getting the tucker on’ when they go for a meal.”
But Ski’s peers never undervalued him. To the man who came to Australia with nothing – but learned the language, became a detective and raised a family – they gave great respect and loyalty. And Ski reciprocated.
In 1978, he transferred to Darlington and, soon after, Christies Beach CIB, where his working life would end a few years later.
Ski simply loved police work, and never considered an alternative career. He relished the police culture, with its unbreakable camaraderie and strong social aspect.
Never did he take the job home, except in some cases in which he had seen children harmed or killed. In one rare moment, he told Joyce of a baby who had died choking on an apple. Ski saw the parents as neglectful and so felt great anger toward them.
Away from work, Ski loved to fish, read books and write letters to his relatives in Poland, to which he made two trips in the 1980s.
He enjoyed time in his garden but, as a competent artist, also used to paint and draw. Photography, too, became one of his interests. And, to Joyce’s occasional annoyance, Ski became a cricket fanatic.
The case of the abduction of 10-year-old Louise Bell from her Hackham home in 1983 was one of the last on which Ski worked.
Sadly, poor health started to plague him toward the end of his career. Afflicted with high blood pressure, he eventually suffered a physical and mental breakdown. He left SAPOL on grounds of invalidity in December 1984.
In the years that followed, he missed the police life terribly.
Police Association president, Peter Alexander – another of Ski’s former Elizabeth CIB colleagues – heard from him in the months just before his death.
He says of the conversation: “He rang me and sounded his same old self – very supportive and very team-orientated; a wonderful character. I was honoured that he shared some very positive thoughts with me.
“I’ll remember him as a good family man, a good cop and a great Australian. He typified the very best of those people who came to Australia after WWII.
“Against all the odds, he became a worthwhile citizen and a hardworking and decent police officer. He was a credit to himself to have done what he did.”
Chief Insp Graham says he will remember Ski as a man who taught him about “people and life”. “He turned up here (in Australia) in the clothes he wore and couldn’t speak English,” he says. “To go on and do what he did was absolutely magnificent.
“I think, when he died, we probably realized how significant his impact was. He was a unique human being.”
His family and friends, and many of his former police colleagues, farewelled him in a service at Hawthorn on February 3.
Ski is survived by his wife, Joyce, four of his five children, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
– Brett Williams
