The title quotations capture the spirit of the actions taken in that part of East Prussia which became part of post-war Poland in 1945. The emphasised links with Polishness perfectly complemented the pool of arguments, chief among which was the ‘redress of Poland's just pretensions’. At the same time, the cultural scenery of these lands did not readily allow for this ‘eminently Polish patina’ to be perceived, which was a challenge for the state and local administration, and confronted scholars with new tasks. Archaeology there was not as well equipped as in the western lands, where Slavic roots dating back to Early Middle Ages supported the ‘we did not come here, we came back here’ argument. In the case of the Prussian lands, the main difficulty was the Baltic character of the indigenous communities, which were more divided from the Piast domain than united with it. In spite of this, the activities undertaken laid the foundation for the so-called Polish school of archival archaeology.