Ostarbeiter
Ostarbeiter (German: [ˈɔstˌʔaÊbaɪtÉ], lit. "Eastern worker") was a Nazi German designation for foreign slave workers gathered from occupied Central and Eastern Europe to perform forced labor in Germany during World War II. The Germans started deporting civilians at the beginning of the war and began doing so at unprecedented levels following Operation Barbarossa in 1941. They apprehended Ostarbeiter from the newly-formed German districts of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, District of Galicia (itself attached to the General Government), and Reichskommissariat Ostland. These areas comprised German-occupied Poland and the conquered territories of the Soviet Union. According to Pavel Polian, although the Ostarbeiter from most occupied territories were predominantly men, of the "eastern workers" taken from occupied Soviet territories over 50% were women, and of those from Poland nearly 30% were women.[2] Eastern workers included ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Russians, Armenians, Tatars, and others.[3] Estimates of the number of Ostarbeiter range between 3 million and 5.5 million.[2]
Ostarbeiter
By 1944, most new workers were under the age of 16 because those older were usually conscripted for service in Germany; 30% were as young as 12–14 years of age when taken from their homes.[2][4] The age limit was reduced to 10 in November 1943.[2] Ostarbeiter were often the victims of rape, and tens of thousands of pregnancies due to rape occurred.[5]
Ostarbeiter often received starvation rations and were forced to live in guarded labor camps. Many died from starvation, 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 occupying powers repatriated many of the over 2.5 million liberated Ostarbeiter.[6] Those returning to the USSR suffered from social ostracism. American authorities banned the repatriation of Ostarbeiter in October 1945, and some of them immigrated to the U.S. as well as to other non eastern-bloc countries. 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.
Pensions and retribution[edit]
In 2000 the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future", a project of the German Federal Government and 6,500 companies of the German Industry Foundation Initiative, was established, which disbursed 10 billion Deutsche Mark (5.1 billion €) to the former forced laborers. This is roughly one-off payment of €2,000 per worker, much less than the inflation-adjusted value of their work. Of the over 2 million Ostarbeiter in Ukraine, 467,000 received a total amount of €867 million,[38] with each worker being assigned a one-time payment of 4,300 marks. The last payments were made in 2007.[38]
Research[edit]
Published eyewitness accounts of the Ukrainian Ostarbeiter experience are virtually non-existent in Ukraine although there were 2,244,000 of them from Ukraine, according to Ukrainian historian Yuriy Kondufor. The State Archival Service of Ukraine now has a collection of documents online showing official notices published by the German government of occupation in Ukraine.[39] A total of 3,000,000 Ostarbeiter were taken to Germany, and it is estimated that Ukrainians constituted about 75% of the total. Ukraine, according to some sources, lost about 10 million people in World War II, which was one of the greatest losses of any country in the war.[7]
Some Ostarbeiter survived the war and were forced to emigrate to the countries outside Europe, primarily to the United States, although a handful also made it to Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Brazil. Ostarbeiter who found themselves in the British or French zones were automatically repatriated. Only those who were in the American zone were not forced to return to their countries of origin. In comparison, Ukrainians from western Ukraine and the Baltic region were not forced to return to the Soviet Union, because the UK did not recognize those territories as part of the USSR.
Notes
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