Our second special event at Glen Waverley Library with Kristian Ireland created a lot of interest. "Ostarbeiter" were citizens from the occupied Ukraine and Soviet Union, and POWs who were forced to labour in Germany during WWII - often under horrendous conditions. Many died of starvation. Kristian told us about his grandmother, a courageous lady, who survived, mainly because the German family for whom she worked as a housemaid, looked after her. In spite of what they had experienced, the "Ostarbeiter" tried to avoid being sent back to Russia after the war - there they were considered "capitalist enemies" who needed to be cleansed of their Western exposure by re-education in labour camps in Siberia! Kristian's grandparents managed to hide in a camp for the Displaced and eventually migrated to Australia. Kristian continues his extensive research into this subject.
