Adalbert Gluszek was born in Slawsk, Poland, then part of Germany. As a youth he worked on his father's farm while attending the Gymnasium, from which he graduated in 1917. He entered the seminary, and despite the extreme difficulties of his years as a seminarian under German rule, he was ordained a priest on July 18, 1922. In 1932, he was assigned a pastorship in Raczkowo. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he was taken in 1940 with many other priests to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and in late 1940 the priests were relocated to the death camp of Dachau. Although imprisoned, he was forced to hear the confessions of Catholic Nazis and absolve his persecutors. In 1944, he and the remaining survivors were liberated by American troops. He ultimately arrived in Pacifica in 1955, where he faithfully served the parishioners of the Church of The Good Shepherd until his retirement in 1990.