Tadeusz Mazowiecki (; 18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician, formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement, and the first non-communist Polish prime minister since 1946. Biography Tadeusz Mazowiecki was born in Płock, Poland on 18 April 1927 to a Polish noble family, which uses the Dołęga coat of arms. Both his parents worked at the local Holy Trinity Hospital: his father was a doctor there while his mother ran a charity for the poor. His education was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. During the war he worked as a runner in the hospital his parents worked for. After the German forces had been expelled from Płock, Tadeusz Mazowiecki resumed his education and in 1946 he graduated from "Marshal Stanisław Małachowski" Lyceum, the oldest high school in Poland and one of the oldest continuously operating school in Europe. He then moved to Łódź and then to Warsaw, where he joined the Law Faculty of the Warsaw University. However, he never graduated and instead devoted himself to activity in various Catholic associations, journals and publishing houses. Catholic activist PAX and WTK Already during his brief stay at the Warsaw University Mazowiecki joined the Caritas Academica charity organisation, he also briefly headed the University Printing Cooperative between 1947 and 1948. In 1946 he also joined Karol Popiel's Labour Party. However, later that year the party was outlawed by the new Stalinist authorities of Soviet-controlled Poland. Almost all other non-communist organisations soon also became a target of state-sponsored repressions. One of the exceptions was the PAX Association, the only large Catholic organisation supported by the Communist authorities – and supporting the authorities in their conflict with the Catholic clergy. Mazowiecki joined PAX in 1948, initially as one of the leaders of the youth circles. He openly criticised Bolesław Piasecki's vision of the association and his allegiance to the Communists. He nevertheless rose through the ranks of various journals published by the association. Initially, a journalist in the Dziś i Jutro weekly, in 1950 he became the deputy editor-in-chief of Słowo Powszechne daily newspaper. In 1952 the conflict between Piasecki and the opposition within the PAX (the so-called Fronda, composed mostly of young intellectuals) led to Mazowiecki being expelled from the daily and relegated to a less prominent role of an editor of newly created (Wrocław Catholic Weekly, WTK). Until