The Untold Story of Eastern European Slaves in Nazi Germany
Forced labor during WWII had a profound impact on millions of people
Most of us have heard of the Holocaust and the untold millions of lives lost to the Nazi’s horrific mass extermination of the Jews, Roma, homosexuals, and disabled in concentration camps. How many of you have heard about the 12 million forced laborers, a majority coming from Slavic Eastern Europe, who were duped or kidnapped and forced to work in Nazi Germany for little to no pay?
I have known about this my whole life since I am the daughter of two Ukrainians who served as slaves of the Third Reich. My mother was duped by Nazi propaganda to go to Germany and found herself in an internment camp called Ruhin near Wolfsburg slaving for Volkswagen until liberated in April 1945. My father was forcibly deported to Germany and sent to work on a farm in Arten until he was liberated around the same time as my mother.
What happened to the other millions of forced laborers? Where did they go? What did they do? Why were they taken to Germany to work by the Nazis? What was their fate during and after the war?
