In 1947, a workers' housing development at the site was renamed Kidričevo after Boris Kidrič,[4][5] a leading Slovenian communist and one of the chief organizers of the Partisan movement in Slovenia from 1941 to 1945.

It was a central collection point for the expulsion of ethnic Germans from Slovenia (Ostsiedlung) after the Second World War.

In 1941,[4] following annexation, the German authorities (German: CdZ-Gebiet Untersteiermark) established a prisoner of war camp at the site to provide labor to build an aluminum smelter (the plant was not completed until 1947–1954, using forced labor by political prisoners from postwar camps[8]).

In May 1945, under the direction of Aleksandar Ranković, the Yugoslav secret police (OZNA) established a concentration camp at the site to collect ethnic Germans from across Slovenia, especially from Lower Styria and Gottschee.

[9] Overcrowding and poor hygiene at the camp caused many of the inmates to die from amoebiasis and typhoid fever.

[14] The Sterntal Concentration Camp was closed down in October 1945 through the efforts of the Red Cross, and most of the survivors were sent to Austria.