Before and during the course of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, many thousands of centers of industry and factories were disassembled and shipped east, across the boundary of the Ural Mountains. Not only were the factories and associated materials shipped there, but the workers as well. This was part of a deliberate strategy in order to secure centers of industry both from invasion and aerial attack. Even though the Soviet Union took a huge blow with the loss of the Donets regions of the Ukraine - where most of their heavy industry was located - they were able to salvage a large part of it by disassembling it, putting it on rail, and re assembling it in the relative safety over the Urals.

For the workers involved in this monumental task of remaking soviet industry in a cold, and desolate area - life was often hard and brutal. The trains that took them to follow their factories on their way east often amounted to little more than cattle cars, with the workers being packed in tightly together. Others had better accommodation, but it was generally an arduous experience being transplanted hundreds of miles away to a completely new life. Once the trains reached their destination the factory had to be put back together again which required hundreds of hours of arduous labor and exertion. The quarters that were allocated to the workers were little better than barracks with Spartan allotments of food and comfort.

When winter set in, in 1941 and in 1942 many of the factories hadn't even finished putting the roofs on their respective facilities. It was reported that snowflakes would fall on full scale tank assembly lines. Workers often were either forced to, or volunteered to, work double or triple shifts in the factories to support production and bring it back in line with previous output. It took until about 1943 until Soviet production levels began to surpass German industrial output, in terms of almost all war materials.

There were constant food shortages and many were suffering from acute exhaustion and fatigue. Work was often grueling and dangerous. Thousands would be lost to work related injuries, fatalities, and accidents in a ruthless Soviet demand for industrial output and efficiency. Women in particular were often making up large parts of the workforce as millions of men were called into the Red Army to make up for their horrendous losses. Many worked ceaselessly and without complaint in the knowledge that their loved ones needed their products in order to defend themselves and their motherland. All resource and sacrifices were needed in order to fend off the fascist onslaught, personal grief and sadness had to be forgone for the betterment of the whole. Due to the scale of loss and disaster collective sacrifice became the rule of the day. Individual bouts of heroism and self sacrifice buried under the millions of casualties and prisoners, that themselves would be dying in their millions.

Source: Richard J. Evans "Third Reich at War", "Leningrad" Anna Reid, "Stalingrad" Anthony Beevor