Poland's esteemed journalist, writer, and diplomat Daniel Passent passed away on Monday at the age of 84. The information about his death was first released by "Polityka" weekly, with which Passent has been collaborating throughout his whole career since 1959.
Daniel Passent was born in 1938 in Stanisławów (today's Ivano-Frankivsk in Ukraine). As a Jewish child he was saved from Holocaust by a Polish family.
His parents were killed in 1944. After being in hiding near Warsaw, they were given up to the Germans by two Poles.
Daniel Passent summed up his wartime memories in one his pieces: "I was saved by Poles and Jews, and my parents were betrayed by Poles; all of them were citizens of Poland".
In the 1950s and 1960s, he studied journalism at the University of Warsaw, Saint Petersburg State University, as well as Princeton and Harvard.
His journalistic debut came when he was 18 with a 1956 piece for "Sztandar Młodych", a communist youth magazine.
In 1959 he began writing for "Polityka" weekly, which he then continued throughout his whole career until his death. His blog "En passant", established in 2006, was one of the first political journals in Poland. Passent also hosted a show in TOK FM radio.
He had one child with Poland's legendary poet and lyricist Agnieszka Osiecka. Their daughter Agata Passent is also an established journalist.
He also had a son with wife Marta Dobromirska-Passent.
In the 1990s, he lived in Boston and wrote for a Spanish monthly "El Diario Mundial".
In 1997, Passent received Commander's Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Between and 1997 and 2002, Passent served as Poland's Ambassador to Chile.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, PAP, "Polityka"