Ostarbeiter

Ostarbeiter (German: [ˈɔstˌʔaʁbaɪtɐ], lit. "Eastern worker") was a Nazi German designation for millions of foreign workers deported from the occupied Soviet Union for slave labor in Germany during World War II. The program was a war crime and a crime against humanity. Ostarbeiter comprised about 2.8 million people, with the largest group (2.2 million) coming from Ukraine. About 1.6 million were children under 16. They often received starvation rations and were forced to live in guarded labor camps. 80,000 to 100,000 died from starvation, disease, overwork, bombing (they were frequently denied access to bomb shelters), abuse, and execution by the German overseers. These workers were often denied wages; when they did get paid, they received payment in a special currency which could only be used to buy specific products at the camps where they lived. Following the war, the Allies repatriated many of the over 2.5 million liberated Ostarbeiter under the terms of the Yalta Agreement. Those from territories annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939-1941 were not subject to repatriation from the Western zones of occupation, and settled in Germany or emigrated. In 2000 the German government and thousands of German companies made a one-time payment of just over € 5 billion to Ostarbeiter victims of the Nazi regime.