Kowalska Street is the only street of the former Jewish Quarter which survived to a large extent. All the buildings adjacent to the Old Town avoided destruction, as well as a few houses on the opposite side, in the western part of the street, between Lubartowska and Furmańska Streets.An empty square used to be located at the crossroads of Nadstawna and Kowalska Streets, where political rallies would take place.The workers sang their songs with growing pride and joy, and whenever eight or nine gathered, a tenth would invariably spring up from somewhere to preach to them, always beginning with, “Comrades and citizens.” Elderly Jews, passing such gatherings, would mutter disapprovingly under their breath, “If things don’t get better, they’ll surely get worse.”Jacob Glatstein, The Glatstein Chronicles – Homeward Bound, 2010 (Ven Yash Iz Geforn, 1937)