Video testimony of nearly 600 survivors of Nazi forced labour programmes was posted online Thursday for historians and students to better understand their ordeal, organisers said Thursday.

The project is an offshoot of a compensation fund founded by the German government and major companies in 2001 for survivors of a programme that saw 12 million people rounded up and conscripted to work during World War II.

The 341 men and 249 women featured in the videos tell of working in concentration camps or munitions plants under gruelling conditions for little or no pay, miserable living conditions and exposure to hunger and disease

The project can be viewed at www.zwangsarbeit-archiv.de.