Kantor's second literary inspiration was Bruno Schulz, a Polish-Jewish writer of the interwar period, widely regarded as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. His collection of short stories, Cinnamon Shops (published in English as The Street of Crocodiles), was first published in 1934 in Warsaw. A second collection, titled Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, was published three years later, and included a series of illustrations that Schulz created especially for the book. A third collection, The Messiah, was lost during World War II. A collection of Schulz's personal letters, titled Book of Letters, has only recently been published. Born in 1892 in Drohobycz, a small, predominantly Jewish town located near Lvov, Schulz spent most of his life in his hometown, rarely leaving. He considered Drohobycz a microcosm of the modern world, a place where small and grand passions play out against the canvas of drudgery-filled, day-to-day existence. He drew his inspiration from the town's daily rhythms, proving himself to be an accurate observer of its life and inhabitants. During World War II, Schulz's visual talents earned him protection from a Gestapo officer, Felix Landau, who was stationed in Drohobych and who admired Schulz's drawings. Schulz was eventually shot by another Gestapo officer as payback for Schulz's protector shooting the officer's own “personal Jew,” a dentist. The bitter irony of Schulz's own death has never been lost; in fact, it has become a part of his legend, always present in the consciousness of those who come to admire his writing.