Before the war Zbigniew Herbert attended the "Państwowe VIII Gimnazjum i Liceum im. Króla Kazimierza Wielkiego we Lwowie" (during the Soviet occupation the name was changed to "High School nr 14"). After the German and Soviet invasion and subsequent occupation of Lwów, he continued his studies at the secret meetings organized by the Polish underground, where he graduated and passed the A-level exam (matura) in January 1944. At the same time, (following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939) he got involved in conspiratorial action with the AK. During the occupation, he worked as a feeder of lice in the Rudolf Weigl Institute that produced anti-typhus vaccines; he also worked as a salesman in 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.