Everywhere Poland showed signs of a country ill at ease with itself, caught on the horns of a dilemma between old and new, East and West. Torn apart throughout its history by both its neighbours, Russia and Germany, it had painstakingly reconstructed much that it had lost in the Second World War – especially, in fine detail, the old town of Warsaw. In contrast, Stalin’s unwelcome post-war gift to the Polish people was a megalithic municipal building of which it was said that the best views of Warsaw could be seen from it – meaning that only by viewing Warsaw from the Stalin monument could one avoid seeing the monument itself.
— Travelling to Infinity (Jane Hawking), Loc. 2560–4