Nazi Germany enslaved millions of people in the 1940s. They sent people from many different groups to concentration camps: communists, socialists, Jews, Gypsies, gays, prostitutes, Soviet prisoners of war, and other foreigners. Forced labor—slavery—began in 1942. Prisoners were worked to death in chemical and rocket factories. Those too weak to work were killed.

By the last months of World War II, over 700,000 people were enslaved. These slave camps were part of a larger Nazi extermination effort in which millions of Jews and other people were methodically killed.