a shop with metal articles. After his A-level exam, he began Polish philology studies at the secret University of Jan Kazimierz in Lwów but had to break them off as a result of moving to Kraków (spring 1944, before the invasion of the Soviet Red Army in Lwów). Lwów after the war became a Ukrainian Soviet city, no longer within Polish borders. Its previous Polish population had been expelled. The loss of his beloved hometown, and the following feeling of being uprooted, were important motifs in his later works. At first, he lived in Proszowice, near Kraków (May 1944 – January 1945). Herbert studied economics in Kraków and attended lectures at the Jagiellonian University and at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1947, after three years of study, he got his Trade Academy diploma. He lived in Sopot (from 1948), where his parents moved in 1946. He worked different jobs; in the Polish National Bank (NBP) in Gdynia (1 March – 30 June 1948), as a sub-editor of the journal Przegląd Kupiecki, and in Gdańsk department of the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP). He met Halina Misiołkowa there (their relationship lasted until 1957). In 1948 he became a member-candidate of the ZLP but resigned in 1951; however, he joined the union again in 1955. While living in Sopot, he continued his law studies at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he received a Master of Law. In the same year he was carried on the list on the second year of Philosophy at NCU in Toruń, where he was inter alia a student of his later master, Henryk Elzenberg. In 1949 Herbert moved to Toruń, and worked in the District Museum and in primary school as a teacher. In Autumn 1951 the poet moved to the University of Warsaw, where he continued studying philosophy for some time. At first, he lived alone in very poor conditions in suburban Warsaw, Brwinów, but then (December 1952 – January 1957), he lived in Warsaw itself on Wiejska Street in a room rented by 12 people. Subsequently, Herbert moved to an official flat on Aleje Jerozolimskie. He tried to live from his writing. However, since he did not follow the official socrealistic style of literature and was unwilling to write political propaganda this proved to be unsuccessful. He published theatrical and musical criticisms and reports from exhibits which ignored the criteria of socrealistic art.