The roads, the language, the devastation, the poverty, the lack of campsites, much less the theft and window accident, all contributed to a hard few days in Poland.
However, we did enjoy very clean bathrooms, which everywhere seem to be cleaned on an hourly or 1/2 hourly schedule. Also, we found that one gas station company provides free showers so camping there helped, as of course did our sauna, spa experience at the Holiday Inn in Gdansk. Free wireless at the Ferber cafe in the Gdansk Old Town kept us connected and a walk at Sopot, as you've seen, perked us up. Also, food is pretty cheap.
I can only imagine how difficult it was for my parents and their families to move from their homes in Europe to America and make all the related transitions. However, I am so glad that I grew up in America. Until Communism ended in Poland a few years ago, I would have ended up speaking Russian and Polish (no English), would have found only vinegar and mustard in the stores and would have had my travel limited to the Soviet Union, East Germany and (then) Czechoslovakia, but only Bulgaria if you were high enough in the party [so we were told by a young couple of Gdynia staying at the same campsite in Prague with us]. Forget any Jewish life. While we have certain stereotyped ideas about Poles (jokes, etc) when in Poland, we confronted the reality that Poles also suffered significantly in WWII, that they fought Nazis both when the Germans invaded and captured the country and continued in the Resistance, that their cities were completely devastated in the war (Gdansk and Warsaw in particular). Rebuilt Warsaw is pretty flat and ugly. The Soviets fortunately allowed Gdansk to rebuild the Old Town exactly as it was, which certainly makes it very charming. Kazamierz in Krakow, I'm not sure about.
The memorials everywhere are difficult. I [Debbie] look at them to see how they define themselves and portray the incident; the aesthetics mean something sometimes and occasionally the memorial is a former synagogue now a museum. So for instance, I had a problem at the Musee de Deportations in France, where no mention was made of the Holocaust in terms of the extermination of the Jews. I, also, in France, though probably our best travel experiences so far from a people point of view, had a hard time considering that Paris monuments and architecture were saved (thankfully) due to the early capitulation and Vichy collaboration with the Nazis. We've seen synagogues turned into museums repeatedly: four synagogues in Prague (more about that later), at least one in Krakow. In addition, of course, many synagogues have been destroyed, as you've seen from the website (not to mention the hundreds of wooden synagogues burnt with their congregants inside in the many shtetlach throughout Poland). It's also a little creepy to shop for Judaica in a shop run by a non Jew, as in Krakow, at a place called the Shalom Gallery where I considered a Lilith amulet but could not ascertain the authenticity. Here, you really confront the upheavals of Jews and Jewish life in a way you don't in the States. Checking out the histories of each of the communities we visit becomes a big blur of: attacks and accusations, expulsions, privileges granted and rescinded, ghettos built and destroyed and built again, badges and special hats worn.
We're slowly working on a page that collects all the memorials we've visited and attempts some kind of an evaluation.