Editing Concentration camp

{{Short description|Form of internment camp for political prisoners}}
{{Not to be confused with|Extermination camp}}[[File:Boercamp1.jpg|thumb|[[Boers|Boer]] women and children in a [[Second Boer War concentration camps|Second Boer War concentration camp]] in South Africa (1899–1902)|270x270px]]

A '''concentration camp ''' is a [[prison]] or other facility used for the [[internment]] of [[political prisoners]] or politically targeted [[demographics]], such as members of national or [[ethnic minority]] groups, on the grounds of [[national security]], or for exploitation or punishment.<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/concentration-camp|title=Concentration camp &#124; Facts, History, Maps, & Definition |website="Britannica"}}</ref> 

Prominent examples of historic concentration camps include the British confinement of non-combatants during the [[Second Boer War]], the [[Internment of Japanese Americans|mass internment of Japanese-Americans by the US]] during the [[Second World War]], the [[Nazi concentration camps]] (which later morphed into [[extermination camp]]s), and the Soviet labour camps or [[gulag]].<ref name="Britannica"/>

==History==
===Definition===
[[File:Weyler reconcentrados.png|thumb|left|Cuban victims of [[Reconcentration policy|Spanish reconcentration policies]], 1896]]
The term ''concentration camp'' originates from the Spanish–Cuban [[Ten Years' War]] when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over the following decades the British during the [[Second Boer War]] and the Americans during the [[Philippine–American War]] also used concentration camps.

The term "concentration camp" and "internment camp" are used to refer to a variety of systems that greatly differ in their severity, mortality rate, and architecture; their defining characteristic is that inmates are held outside the [[rule of law]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Stone |first=Dan |author-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-879070-9 |pages=122–123|quote=Concentration camps throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries are by no means all the same, with respect either to the degree of violence that characterizes them or the extent to which their inmates are abandoned by the authorities... The crucial characteristic of a concentration camp is not whether it has barbed wire, fences, or watchtowers; it is, rather, the gathering of civilians, defined by a regime as de facto ‘enemies’, in order to hold them against their will without charge in a place where the rule of law has been suspended.}}</ref> <!-- He also refers to "internment camps" on page 123. --> [[Extermination camp]]s or death camps, whose primary purpose is killing, are also imprecisely referred to as "concentration camps".<ref>{{cite web |title=Nazi Camps |url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-camps?series=10 |publisher=[[United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]] |access-date=3 October 2020}}</ref>

The ''[[American Heritage Dictionary]]'' defines the term ''concentration camp'' as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable."<ref>{{Cite dictionary |title=Concentration camp |url=http://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=concentration+camp&submit.x=-664&submit.y=-210 |access-date=22 July 2014 |dictionary=American Heritage Dictionary}}</ref>

Although the first example of civilian internment may date as far back as the 1830s,<ref>{{Cite book |last=James L. Dickerson |title=Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture |publisher=Chicago Review Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-55652-806-4 |page=29}}</ref> the English term ''concentration camp'' was first used in order to refer to the [[Reconcentration policy|reconcentration camps]] (Spanish:''reconcentrados'')  which were set up by the [[Spain under the Restoration|Spanish military]] in [[Cuba]] during the [[Ten Years' War]] (1868–1878).<ref name="Columbia">{{Cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=The Columbia Encyclopedia |title=Concentration Camp |date=2008 |publisher=Columbia University Press |edition=Sixth}}</ref><ref name="Smithsonian 2017">{{Cite news |date=2 November 2017 |title=Concentration Camps Existed Long Before Auschwitz |work=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]] |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/concentration-camps-existed-long-before-Auschwitz-180967049/}}</ref> The label was applied yet again to camps set up by the United States during the [[Philippine–American War]] (1899–1902).<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Storey |first1=Moorfield |url=https://archive.org/stream/secretaryrootsr00codmgoog#page/n8/mode/2up |title=Secretary Root's record. "Marked severities" in Philippine warfare. An analysis of the law and facts bearing on the action and utterances of President Roosevelt and Secretary Root |last2=Codman |first2=Julian |publisher=George H. Ellis Company |year=1902 |location=Boston |pages=89–95 |author-link=Moorfield Storey |author-link2=Julian Codman}}</ref> And expanded usage of the ''concentration camp'' label continued, when the [[Second Boer War concentration camps|British set up camps]] during the [[Second Boer War]] (1899–1902) in South Africa for interning [[Boer]]s during the same time period.<ref name="Columbia" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Documents re camps in Boer War |url=http://www-sul.stanford.edu/africa/boers.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070609212833/http://www-sul.stanford.edu/africa/boers.html |archive-date=9 June 2007 |publisher=sul.stanford.edu}}</ref> The [[German Empire]] also established concentration camps during the [[Herero and Nama genocide]] (1904–1907); the death rate of these camps was 45 per cent, twice that of the British camps.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Stone |first1=Dan|author-link=Dan Stone (historian) |title=Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction |date=2017 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-103502-9 |language=en|pages=19–20}}</ref>

===Russian camps===
[[File:Vorkuta.jpg|thumb|Punishment cell block in one of the subcamps of [[Vorkutlag]], a major Russian [[gulag]], 1945]]
The [[Russian Empire]] used forced [[exile]] and [[forced labour]] as forms of judicial punishment. [[Katorga]], a category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment. According to historian [[Anne Applebaum]], katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 [[katorga]] convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 in 1916.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2004, pp. xxxi</ref> These camps served as a model for political imprisonment during the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] period. In the midst of the [[Russian Civil War]], [[Lenin]] and the Bolsheviks established "special" prison camps, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the [[Cheka]].<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History". Anchor, 2003, pp. 12</ref><ref>The Lost Literature of Socialism, [[George Watson (scholar)|George Watson]]</ref> These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose.<ref>Applebaum, Anne. "Gulag: A History". Anchor, 2003, pp. 5</ref> These concentration camps were not identical to the Stalinist, but were introduced to isolate war prisoners given the extreme historical situation following [[World War 1]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Krausz |first1=Tamás |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=z23IBgAAQBAJ&dq=lenin+concentration+camps+stalinist+obviously&pg=PA512 |title=Reconstructing Lenin: An Intellectual Biography |date=27 February 2015 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-449-9 |page=512 |language=en}}</ref> In 1929, the distinction between criminal and political prisoners was eliminated,<ref>Applebaum, Anne. ''Gulag: A History.'' Anchor, 2003, pp. 50.</ref> administration of the camps was turned over to the [[Joint State Political Directorate]], and the camps were greatly expanded to the point that they comprised a significant portion of the Soviet economy.<ref name="Ellman">{{cite journal |last=Ellman |first=Michael |year=2002 |title=Soviet Repression Statistics: Some Comments |url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/ELM-Repression_Statistics.pdf |journal=Europe-Asia Studies |volume=54 |issue=2 |pages=1151–1172 |doi=10.1080/0966813022000017177 |s2cid=43510161 |access-date=August 14, 2011}}</ref> This Gulag system consisted of several hundred<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-06-21 |title=Gulag {{!}} Definition, History, Prison, & Facts |website=Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Gulag |access-date=2024-07-15 |language=en}}</ref> camps for most of its existence and detained some 18 million from 1929 until 1953.<ref name="Applebaum">{{Cite web |date=2004 |title=Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday) |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/anne-applebaum |access-date=2019-11-13 |publisher=The Pulitzer Prizes}}</ref> As part of a series of reforms during the [[Khrushchev Thaw]], the Gulag shrank to a quarter of its former size and receded in its significance in Soviet society.<ref>Marc Elie. Khrushchev's Gulag: the Soviet Penitentiary System after Stalin's death, 1953-1964. Denis Kozlov et Eleonory Gilburd. ''[https://hal.science/hal-00859338/ The Thaw: Soviet Society and Culture during the 1950s and 1960s]'', Toronto University Press, pp.109-142, 2013, 978-1442644601. ⟨hal-00859338⟩</ref>

===Nazi German camps===
[[File:Buchenwald Slave Laborers Liberation.jpg|thumb|Jewish slave laborers at the [[Buchenwald concentration camp]] near [[Weimar]] photographed after their liberation by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] on 16 April 1945]]
[[Nazi Germany]] first established concentration camps for tens of thousands of political prisoners, primarily members of the [[Communist Party of Germany]] and the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]], in 1933, detaining tens of thousands of prisoners.<ref>White, Joseph Robert (2009). "Introduction to the Early Camps". Early Camps, Youth Camps, and Concentration Camps and Subcamps under the SS-Business Administration Main Office (WVHA). ''Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945''. Vol. 1. Indiana University Press. pp. 3–16. <nowiki>ISBN 978-0-253-35328-3</nowiki>.</ref> Many camps were closed following releases of prisoners at the end of the year, and the camp population would continue to dwindle through 1936; this trend would reverse in 1937, with the Nazi regime arresting tens of thousands of "[[Black triangle (badge)|anti-socials]]", a category that included [[Romani people]] as well as the homeless, mentally ill, and social non-conformists. Jews were increasingly targeted beginning in 1938. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II, the camps were massively expanded and became increasingly deadly.<ref>[[Nikolaus Wachsmann|Wachsmann, Nikolaus]] (2009). "The Dynamics of Destruction: The Development of the Concentration Camps, 1933–1945". In Jane Caplan; Nikolaus Wachsmann (eds.). ''Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany: The New Histories''. Routledge. pp. 17–43. {{ISBN|978-1-135-26322-5}}.</ref> At its peak, the Nazi concentration camp system was extensive, with as many as 15,000 camps<ref name="jewishvirtuallibrary1">{{cite web |title=Concentration Camp Listing |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/cclist.html |publisher=Editions Kritak |location=Belgium |quote=Sourced from Van Eck, Ludo ''Le livre des Camps''}} and {{cite book | author=Gilbert, Martin | title=Atlas of the Holocaust | location=New York | publisher=William Morrow| year=1993| isbn=0-688-12364-3}}. In this online site are the names of 149 camps and 814 subcamps, organized by country.</ref> and at least 715,000 simultaneous internees.<ref>{{cite book |last=Evans |first=Richard J. |title=The Third Reich in Power |publisher=Penguin Group |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-14-303790-3 |location=New York}}</ref> About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about [[Holocaust victims|a million died]] during their imprisonment. The total number of casualties in these camps is difficult to determine, but the deliberate policy of [[extermination through labor]] in many of the camps was designed to ensure that the inmates would die of starvation, untreated disease and [[summary execution]]s within set periods of time.<ref name="Marek Przybyszewski">{{cite book |last=Marek Przybyszewski |url=http://www.historia.terramail.pl/opracowania/nowozytna/zamek_centrum_administracji.html |title=IBH Opracowania – Działdowo jako centrum administracyjne ziemi sasińskiej |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101022004220/http://www.historia.terramail.pl/opracowania/nowozytna/zamek_centrum_administracji.html |archive-date=2010-10-22 |language=pl |trans-title=Działdowo as the centre of local administration |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> In addition to the concentration camps, Nazi Germany established six [[extermination camp]]s, specifically designed to kill millions of people, primarily by [[Extermination camp#Gassing|gassing]].<ref name="Gellately2001">{{Cite book |last1=Robert Gellately |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1toqgWg8ROUC&q=forced+labor |title=Social Outsiders in Nazi Germany |last2=Nathan Stoltzfus |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-691-08684-2 |page=216}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |author=Anne Applebaum |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2001/oct/18/a-history-of-horror |title=A History of Horror{{!}} Review of ''Le Siècle des camps'' by Joël Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot |date=18 October 2001 |magazine=[[The New York Review of Books]]}}</ref> As a result, the term "concentration camp" is sometimes conflated with the concept of an "[[extermination camp]]" and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or the term "internment camp" should be used to describe other examples of civilian internment.<ref name="euph">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2012/02/10/146691773/euphemisms-concentration-camps-and-the-japanese-internment|title=Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment|website=NPR Ombudsman blog|date=10 February 2012 |last1=Schumacher-Matos |first1=Edward |last2=Grisham |first2=Lori}}</ref>

===Other camps===
{{see also|List of concentration and internment camps}}
Before and during World War II, concentration camps were established by various authorities. In the late 1920s, the Dutch colonial government established the [[Boven-Digoel concentration camp]] in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) to intern Indonesian nationalist leaders and political dissidents.<ref name="TS2021-1">{{cite book |last1=Shiraishi |first1=Takashi |title=The Phantom World of Digul: Policing as politics in Colonial Indonesia, 1926-1941 |date=2021 |publisher=NUS Press |location=Singapore |isbn=9784814003624 |pages=29–35}}</ref> Also during World War II, concentration camps were established by [[List of Italian concentration camps|Italian]], [[List of Japanese-run internment camps during World War II|Japanese]], [[Internment of Japanese Americans|US]], and [[Japanese Canadian internment|Canadian]] forces.

The former label continues to see expanded use for cases post-[[World War II]], for instance in relation to [[List of British detention camps during the Mau Mau Uprising|British camps in Kenya]] during the [[Mau Mau rebellion]] (1952–1960),<ref>{{Cite news |date=27 August 2019 |title=Museum of British Colonialism releases online 3D models of British concentration camps in Kenya |work=Morning Star |url=https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/museum-british-colonialism-releases-online-3d-models-british}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=31 December 1989 |title=The Mau Mau Rebellion |newspaper=The Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1989/12/31/the-mau-mau-rebellion/186d8bdf-1d95-4b63-9147-c67f20d7eb0f/}}</ref> [[Internment camps in France#Algerian War|French camps]] to forcibly relocate 2 million Algerians during the [[Algerian War]],<ref name="Kevin Shillington">{{cite book|author=Kevin Shillington|title=Encyclopedia of African History 3-Volume Set|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA60|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-45670-2|pages=60|access-date=28 October 2022|archive-date=26 March 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164808/https://books.google.com/books?id=umyHqvAErOAC&pg=PA60|url-status=live}}</ref> camps set up in [[Chile]] during the [[military dictatorship]] of [[Augusto Pinochet]] (1973–1990).<ref>{{Cite news |date=7 September 2013 |title=Chilean coup: 40 years ago I watched Pinochet crush a democratic dream |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/07/chile-coup-pinochet-allende}}</ref> According to the [[United States Department of Defense]] as many as 3 million [[Uyghurs]] and members of other [[Islam in China|Muslim]] minority groups are being held in [[China]]'s [[Xinjiang internment camps|internment camps]] which are located in the [[Xinjiang]] region and which American news reports often label as ''concentration camps''.<ref>{{Cite news |date=22 May 2019 |title=As the U.S. Targets China's 'Concentration Camps', Xinjiang's Human Rights Crisis is Only Getting Worse |work=Newsweek |url=https://www.newsweek.com/xinjiang-uyghur-crisis-muslim-china-1398782}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=17 November 2019 |title=Uighurs and their supporters decry Chinese 'concentration camps', 'genocide' after Xinjiang documents leaked |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/17/uighurs-their-supporters-decry-chinese-concentration-camps-genocide-after-xinjiang-documents-leaked/}}</ref> The camps were established in the late 2010s under [[General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party|Chinese Communist Party general secretary]] [[Xi Jinping]]'s [[China under Xi Jinping|administration]].<ref>{{Cite news |last1=Ramzy |first1=Austin |last2=Buckley |first2=Chris |date=2019-11-16 |title='Absolutely No Mercy': Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims |language=en-US |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html |access-date=2019-11-16 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Kate O'Keeffe and Katy Stech Ferek |date=14 November 2019 |title=Stop Calling China's Xi Jinping 'President', U.S. Panel Says |work=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/stop-calling-chinas-xi-jinping-president-u-s-panel-says-11573740000}}</ref> More recently, there have been instances of plots of land used as recruitment centers, for forced labor and extermination centers used by Mexican drug cartels, a prominent example being the Jalisco extermination camp, where a group looking for missing persons in Mexico found over 200 pairs of shoes and clandestine crematoriums.<ref>https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/14/world/americas/mexico-extermination-camp.html</ref>

<gallery mode="packed" heights="115" style="font-size:88%;line-height:120%">
File:Beriberi USNLM.jpg|Filipino man riddled with [[beriberi]] contracted in a U.S. Army concentration camp during the [[Philippine–American War]], 1902{{cn|date=April 2025}}
File:Herero Nama Shark Island Death Camp Lieutenant von Durling 05.jpg|Lieutenant von Durling with prisoners at [[Shark Island concentration camp|Shark Island]], one of the German concentration camps used during the [[Herero and Nama genocide]]
File:Armrefugees.jpg|Armenian refugees collected near the body of a dead horse at [[Deir ez-Zor camps|Deir ez-Zor]], during the [[Armenian genocide]]
File:Tampere prison camp women.jpg|Women at the [[Kalevankangas camp|Kalevankangas concentration camp]] of [[Tampere]] in 1918, several months after the [[Finnish Civil War]]
File:Boven-Digoel.jpg|Indonesian prisoners being exiled to the Dutch camp of [[Boven-Digoel concentration camp|Boven-Digoel]], 1927
File:The fence at the old GULag in Perm-36.JPG|[[Fence]] at the [[gulag]] Perm-36, opened in 1943
File:Auschwitz Resistance 280 cropped.jpg|Prisoners' [[corpse|bodies]] are burned after they are killed in the [[gas chamber]]s at [[Auschwitz concentration camp]]
Image:Ustaše militia execute prisoners near the Jasenovac concentration camp.jpg|[[Ustaše]] soldiers kill prisoners near [[Jasenovac concentration camp]]
File:"Persons of Japanese ancestry arrive at the Santa Anita Assembly Center from San Pedro. Evacuees lived at this center at - NARA - 539960.jpg|[[Manzanar]] internment camp for Japanese-Americans in 1942
File:Japanese internment camp in British Columbia.jpg|An internment camp for Japanese-Canadians in British Columbia
File:New Village in Malaya, 1950s.jpg|A model [[new village]], designed as part of the [[Briggs Plan]] to separate the largely Chinese Malaysian rural populace from communist guerrillas during the [[Malayan Emergency]] (1948–1960)
File:Photo de l'infirmerie et des locaux disiplinaire du camp de Thol.jpg|Camp de Thol, one of the French concentration camps for Algerians used during the [[Algerian War]]<ref>{{cite journal |language=fr |author=Arthur Grosjean |title=Internement, emprisonnement et guerre d'indépendance algérienne en métropole : l'exemple du camp de Thol (1958-1965) |journal=Criminocorpus. Revue d'Histoire de la justice, des crimes et des peines |date=10 March 2014 |doi=10.4000/criminocorpus.2676 |s2cid=162123460 |url=http://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2676 |access-date=7 November 2022 |archive-date=7 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221107072404/https://journals.openedition.org/criminocorpus/2676 |url-status=live }}</ref>
File:Manjača Camp.jpg|Bosniak civilian detainees of [[Bosanska Krajina]] in [[Manjača camp]]
File:Xinjiang Internment Map, US-Aus Gov Assessment.jpg|Map of the [[Xinjiang internment camps]] in China based on data collected by the US [[National Geospatial Intelligence Agency]] and the [[Australian Strategic Policy Institute]]
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[List of concentration and internment camps]]
*[[Civilian internee]]
*[[Extermination through labor]]
*[[New village]]
*[[Bantustan]]
*[[Labor camp]]
*[[Kwalliso]] (North Korean political penal labour colonies)
*[[Laogai]] (Chinese, "reform through labor")
*[[Prisoner-of-war camp]]
*[[Prisons in North Korea]]
*[[Re-education camp (Vietnam)]]
*[[Re-education through labor]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Pitzer |first=Andrea |title=One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps |year=2017 |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |isbn=978-0-316-30359-0}}
*{{cite book |last=Stone |first=Dan |title=Concentration Camps: A Very Short Introduction |date=2015 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0-19-879070-9}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Iain R. |last2=Stucki |first2=Andreas |title=The Colonial Development of Concentration Camps (1868–1902) |url=http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/44298/1/WRAP_Smith_Andreas%27s_and_Iain%27s_revised_version_of_JICH_article_%28completed%29.pdf |journal=The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History |date=September 2011 |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=417–437 |s2cid=159576119 |doi=10.1080/03086534.2011.598746}}

==External links==
*{{Commons category-inline}}

{{Incarceration}}
{{Segregation by type}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Internment camps| ]]
[[Category:Total institutions]]