Ostarbeiter

Ostarbeiter
Woman with Ostarbeiter badge at the Auschwitz subsidiary IG-Farbenwerke factory
German notice from 30 September 1939 in occupied Poland with warning of death penalty for refusal to work during harvest
Operation
Period	1939 – 1945
Location	German-occupied Europe
Prisoners
Total	At least 7.6 million foreign civilians in 1944

Ostarbeiter (meaning "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. Deportations of civilians conducted since the beginning of war, reached unprecedented levels following Operation Barbarossa of 1941. The Ostarbeiters were apprehended from the newly formed German districts of Reichskommissariat Ukraine, General Government Distrikt Galizien, and Reichskommissariat Ostland which comprised the territories of German occupied Poland as well as formerly Soviet occupied Poland since 1939, and the Soviet Union itself. According to Pavel Polian over 50% of Ostarbeiters were formerly Soviet subjects originating from the territory of modern-day Ukraine, followed by Polish women workers, approaching 30%. Among the Eastern workers were ethnic Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Russians, Tatars, and others. Estimates of the number of Ostarbeiter range between 3 million and 5.5 million.

By 1944 most new workers were very young, under the age of 16, as those older than that were usually conscripted for service in Germany; 30% were as young as 12–14 years of age when they were taken from their homes. The age limit was dropped to 10 in November 1943. Since about half of the adolescents were female, Ostarbeiter were often the victims of rape and tens of thousands of pregnancies due to rape occurred.

Ostarbeiter were often given starvation rations and were forced to live in guarded camps. Many died from starvation, overwork, bombing (they were frequently denied access to bomb shelters), abuse and execution carried out by their German overseers. Ostarbeiter were often denied wages but 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.