The principles for naming towns and urban streets after the return to the Piast lands underwent changes over the course of the 1940s and 1950s. With regard to place names, the following principle was adopted:
Private specialist dental clinic "Stomadent", 19 Witosa Street, tel. 65-88 /22 July/, bringing together leading dentists and equipped with the most modern machinery and instruments, provides painless and effective treatment in comfortable conditions. Full range of dental services.
If an old Piast name appeared in German documents, the original name was restored, one that the Germans had simply altered by giving it a German sound. In this way, many former town names were restored. Street naming was more problematic. All German names, or names reminiscent of a German sound, were removed.
In larger towns, where plans with medieval names had survived, as in Wrocław, their former forms were restored: Szewska, Kuźnicza, Rymarska, Piekarska, and so on.
In smaller towns, this principle was often not applied. On this occasion, the names of Mozart, Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe and others disappeared because they were associated with Germanness.
In Bolesławiec, as in most towns, in the 1950s and 1960s streets were named after activists of the workers’ and people’s movements, socialist activists, and war heroes, including Soviet heroes. The first major verification took place after October 1956, when all Stalinist names or names connected with the cult of Stalin were removed. The second major wave of changes in the names of streets and squares began at the end of the 1980s and continues to this day. I am far from suggesting anything to the City Council, but the process of changing names so far has not been the most successful. Old plans of Bolesławiec, including the latest one from 1883, contain names to which it would be possible to return successfully while preserving a tradition reaching back to Piast times. Thus, the street now called "Sierpnia 80", formerly H. Sawicka, was once called "Górna", after the upper gate leading into the town; similarly, there was Celna Street, named after the Customs Gate (today Prusa), and Mikołajska Street, today Kutuzowa.
The former M. Fornalska Street, today Armii Krajowej, was called "Klasztorna" or "Dominikańska", after the Dominican monastery that stood there.
If the city authorities still intend to change the names of streets that carry negative associations, I would like to present several proposals. Bolesławiec lacks streets named after:
?Bolesław Rogatka – the duke associated with the town’s founding under municipal law;
A Bolko III of Świdnica, the last Piast of the duchy to which Bolesławiec belonged;
Mikołaj Broda – the town’s first mayor, from 1326;
Pocztowa Street (the first post office in Bolesławiec was established in 1573);
- Marcin Opitz – a native of Bolesławiec, poet and courtier to King Władysław IV;
A Dawid Bach – a Wrocław professor, painter, friend of Count Ossoliński, and creator of Bolesławiec ceramics.
The following names could also be added:
A Giulio Simonetti (settled in Bolesławiec in 1689 and died in 1729. For over 30 years he worked in Bolesławiec as the municipal builder. Among other things, he created the Baroque interior of the parish church);
A Jerzy Leonard Weber – a renowned sculptor and creator of the church sculptures;
- Nankier – Bolesławiec’s first castellan;
- Wendel Roskapf – creator and builder of the town hall.
I believe that drawing on tradition and logical connections is entirely justified here.