Adamowicz was born in Gdańsk. His parents Ryszard and Teresa were Polish economists, who were moved to Poland from Vilnius, LSSR, in 1946. Paweł later recalled that his parents were suspicious of communism and party propaganda. "Like many Poles of our generation, [my] brother and I have thus been shaped against the obligatory official history; since childhood we have known not only the sinister wording of the Gestapo abbreviation, but also the NKVD; we perfectly understood what is behind the names of distant places: Kazakhstan, Siberia, Katyn. We hardly saw a place for ourselves in this double world."He studied law at the University of Gdańsk, where he also rose to prominence as a student movement member. He was one of the organizers of the 1988 strike, becoming the head of the strike committee. Between 1990 and 1993, he served as a vice-rector for student affairs at his alma mater.