Maribor was the site of a German prisoner-of-war camp from 1941 to 1945 for many British, Australian, and New Zealand troops who had been captured in Crete in 1941. In 1944, the largest mass rescue of POWs of the war in Europe took place when 105 Allied prisoners from the camp were freed by Slovene partisans in the Raid at Ožbalt. The city, a major industrial centre with an extensive armament industry, was systematically bombed by the Allies in the closing years of World War II. A total of 29 bombing raids devastated some 47% of the city area, killing 483 civilians and leaving over 4,200 people homeless. Over 2,600 people died in Maribor during the war. By the end of the war, Maribor was the most war-damaged major town of Yugoslavia. The remaining German-speaking population, except those who had actively supported the resistance during the war, was summarily expelled at the end of the war in May 1945. At the same time Croatian Home Guard members and their relatives who tried to escape from Yugoslavia were executed by the Yugoslav Army. The existence of nine mass graves in and near Maribor was revealed after Slovenia's independence.