The rest, some 103,000 men, chose during their detention to support the Italian Social Republic to escape the harsh circumstances in the German labor camps. Between 600,000 and 650,000 remained in German labor camps, where between 37,000 and 50,000 of them perished. Between 20,000 and 30,000 Italian soldiers had been killed during the fighting in September 1943,[9] and 13,000 more had perished in the sinking of POW ships in the Aegean.