The fame of the Polish school at Lvov rests with the diverse and fundamental contributions of Polish mathematicians working there during the interwar years. In particular, despite material hardship and without a notable mathematical tradition, the school made major contributions to what is now called functional analysis. The results and names of Banach, Kac, Kuratowski, Mazur, Nikodym, Orlicz, Schauder, Sierpinski, Steinhaus, and Ulam, among others, now appear in all the standard textbooks.
The vibrant joie de vivre and singular ambience of Lvov's once scintillating social scene are...