Wroclaw is the capital of Lower Silesia in southwestern Poland with a population of approximately 638,000 people. It is the principal city of the Lower Silesia region and is the administrative seat of the Lower Silesian Voivodship since 1999, it was previously of Wroclaw Voivodship. The city is also a separate city-county. Many of the city's 10,000 Jews were killed during the Nazi genocide of World War II. In 1945, Breslau (German for Wroclaw) was declared a fortress and much of the population was evacuated, although some 200,000 remained. To build fortifications, slave labor was needed to augment civilian workers, and concentration camp prisoners were forced to help. After a siege of nearly three months, the last major city in eastern Germany fell. Over 40,000 residents died, and almost 70 percent of the city was destroyed. Almost all of the monumental buildings were preserved, and Wroclaw is now a uniquely European city of present-day Poland, with much of its architecture echoing that of Austria, Bohemia, or Prussia. The Gothic style is originally Silesian; its Baroque style is borrowed from Austria; there are still several buildings by famous German artists. In 1997, the city was hit by severe flooding; in 2005, the city was hit by a storm that felled trees and killed three people. The storm was local and did not affect other major cities. The town has been the home of 10 Noble Prize laureates, the last in 1994. There are 12 colleges and universities in Wroclaw. Many major corporations have operations in Wroclaw, such as Volvo, Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Grupa Lukas, and many more.