Millions of Germans were expelled as part of Poland's westward shift in 1945. New Polish administrators insisted that only true Poles could remain, but in Upper Silesia national definitions often depended on political and economic expediency. Polish "verification" proved lenient and fungible. Locals with minimal knowledge of Polish were allowed to escape expulsion. Many who chose to stay framed their desires in terms of economic benefits, or love of homeland, rather than Polish national loyalty. Yet life was far from rosy for these “autochthons,” as they were called. The Polish drive to eliminate signs of the enemy German nation after 1945 reached new extremes. German language usage was punished with fines and imprisonment, and almost all material signs of German culture were erased. Natives responded to widespread oppression largely by retreating into closed-off communities. When the Polish−West German border opened for “family reunifications” amid a post-Stalinist thaw in 1956−1959, thousands of Upper Silesians fled west, reclaiming their German citizenship. Where the Nazis had failed to turn Upper Silesians into Germans, the Poles had succeeded.