We soon reached the Rynek Podgórski, the neighborhood’s main market square, which sat just outside the ghetto walls. It was deserted now except for a few rats searching the trash bins for food. We skirted the edge of St. Joseph’s, the immense neo-Gothic church at the head of the square, and reached the ghetto wall. Although there was no one to keep inside anymore, the ghetto gates were still closed. We followed the perimeter of the high brick wall until we found a section that had been knocked down, then stepped gingerly over stones and rubble to get inside. The devastation was so much worse than I had heard about or realized from below, building after building burned out, the windows smashed, just shells of where people had once lived. I looked at Ella, who had stopped walking. I knew the ghetto all too well, but this was the first time that she was seeing it and her face was twisted with dismay as she saw the awful way we had lived—and how it had all ended.

“Come,” I said, urging her onward. Now I had to lead the way, weaving through the ghetto streets toward the house on Lwowska Street that Saul had told me about. The air was tinged with coal and something more acrid, perhaps the smell of garbage burning. At the corner of Józefińska Street, I paused, looking in the direction of the building where we had once lived. The ghetto had not been my home—we had been forced there, and before the sewer, it was the worst place I had ever known. Still, this was the last place my parents and I had really been together, and I found myself assaulted by my memories and a kind of nostalgia I had not expected. More than a small piece of me wanted to go and see our apartment once more.

But there was no time. We pressed onward. Amidst the destruction, there were several houses that had been refurbished, with new glass in the once-broken windows or, in a few cases, newspaper held in place with tar to cover the gap. The ghetto was inhabited, I realized with surprise. Not by Jews anymore, but most likely lower-class Poles, who had either been assigned the housing by the General Government or taken the vacant residences for themselves. Part of me wanted to be angry at them. These were not wealthy Poles exploiting the property of Jews for their own gain, though, but rather local people just seeing an opportunity and doing what they needed to and providing for their families. No one who had a choice would have come to live here.

Still, they would surely tell the police if they saw us. I considered turning back. We had expected the ghetto to be deserted. It wasn’t safe for us to be here. But we needed the food. The address Saul had given me might be occupied now as well, I thought as we turned onto Lwowska Street. I didn’t know how we would look for the food if that was the case.