Quote:
Originally Posted by brian_wilbanks
and how is it that you know that it's a concentration camp?
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Maybe it's the lookout towers with the searchlights?
Hitler's brand had a fair range of variety ... when they
started up they were mainly for political prisoners.
It wasn't until 1942 that some were refined into death
camps ... in other words not all concentration camps
had ovens, gas chambers and mass graves.
Quote:
From Wikipedia:
The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. defines concentration camp as: a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45.
Although similar camps existed earlier (such as the US Concentration Camps forced on Cherokee and other Native Americans in the 1830s, Cuba (1868–78), the Philippines (1898–1901) by the Spanish and Americans respectively[5]), the English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899-1902 Second Boer War[6]. Purportedly conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were used to confine and control large numbers of civilians as part of a scorched earth tactic.
At the time that Kitchener started the concentration camps in South Africa the war had entered the guerilla phase and set battles during which farms could be destroyed no longer happened. By destroying crops, livestock and farmsteads under the 'Scorched Earth' policy the Boer fighters were deprived of supplies and shelter.It also left the women and children on such farms destitute and they were forcibly removed, against their will, to the camps where thousands died of disease and starvation.
Use of the word concentration comes from the idea of concentrating a group of people who are in some way undesirable in one place, where they can be watched by those who incarcerated them. For example, in a time of insurgency, potential supporters of the insurgents are placed where they cannot provide them with supplies or information, a modern example of which is the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
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