Sterntal camp

The Sterntal Camp was a Titoist concentration camp located in Kidričevo, Slovenia. It was a central collection point for the expulsion of ethnic German Danube Swabians from Yugoslavia after the Second World War. The roots of the camp go back to a prisoner of war camp from the First World War, later used as a refugee camp for people displaced by the Battles of the Isonzo. In 1941, the German occupation authorities established a prisoner of war camp at the site to provide labor to build an aluminum smelter (the plant was not completed until 1947–1954). At the beginning of 1942, the camp contained 1,076 workers, 185 criminal internees, and 89 prisoners of war. In 1944, family members of deserters were also forced to work at the camp. In May 1945, under the direction of Aleksandar Ranković, the Yugoslav secret police (OZNA) established a concentration camp at the site to collect ethnic Germans from across Slovenia, especially from Lower Styria and Gottschee. Ethnic Hungarians from Prekmurje were also sent to the camp.