Integration of the Western and Northern Territories with the rest of the nation occurred not only through settlers but also through the so-called autochthons with a Polish national awareness. Activists in Polonia organizations functioning there before the war now engaged in establishing new political and social structures. Among them, Arka Bożek played the most important role – in the 1930s, a leader of the Polish Association in Germany, who after the war became voivode to the provincial vice governor of Upper Silesia, and a government plenipotentiary in Opolian Silesia.