Władysław Bartoszewski, the PM’s plenipotentiary for international dialogue, historian, journalist, Auschwitz prisoner and Home Army soldier, has died in Warsaw at the age of 93.

Government spokeswoman Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska informed that Bartoszewski had been taken into hospital in Warsaw earlier on Friday, although the spokesman at the Central Clinical Hospital of the Interior Ministry, Jarosław Buczek had refused to give further information.

Bartoszewski was born in Warsaw on 19 February 1922. During World War II, he was interred in Auschwitz in 1940, although was freed thanks to actions undertaken by the Polish Red Cross in 1941.

Bartoszewski went on to fight in the underground resistance under the nom-de-guerre ‘Teofil’ and saw action in the Warsaw Rising in 1944. He was also a member of Żegota, a resistance organisation which aided Jews.

In the 1960s, Bartoszewski was awarded with the diploma of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for his aid towards Jews during the war.

Professionally, Władysław Bartoszewski was a politician, social activist, historian, and journalist, having worked for Radio Free Europe.

After the collapse of communism in 1989, he was twice Poland’s foreign minister, serving under the Oleksy and Buzek governments.

Bartoszewski was a chevalier of the Order of the White Eagle, the country’s oldest and highest state distinction.

Władysław Bartoszewski authored over 40 books and almost 1,500 articles, mostly on the Warsaw Rising, Polish-Jewish relations (he was also an honorary citizen of Israel), as well as Polish-German relations. (jb)