concentration camp

noun

: a place where large numbers of people (such as prisoners of war, political prisoners, refugees, or the members of an ethnic or religious minority) are detained or confined under armed guard

—used especially in reference to camps created by the Nazis in World War II for the internment and persecution of Jews and other prisoners

The Nazi soldiers hauled [Mordechai] Strigler off to a concentration camp, and carved swastikas into his cheeks and forehead with a razor blade. Over the next five years, he was sent from one concentration camp or slave-labor camp to another.

—David Remnick

She ended up dying in a concentration camp, just a few months before she would have been liberated.

—Marilyn Reynolds

The V2 killed thousands of British civilians while 20,000 concentration camp inmates died as slave labourers during its manufacture in the closing stages of the second world war.

—Anna Tomforde et al.

see also death camp

Examples of concentration camp in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Abend says many attendees have been people who visited concentration camps or have connections to people who were prisoners in those camps. —Sarah Lapidus, The Arizona Republic, 18 Oct. 2024

On the hills above Goethe’s Weimer sits the Buchenwald concentration camp; in Erfurt, Topf & Sons manufactured ovens and gas-chamber-ventilation systems for the death camps. —Alec MacGillis, The New Yorker, 11 Sep. 2024

However, the prosecution quickly puts paid to Quisling’s claim via the chilling testimony of Norwegian Jewish concentration camp survivor, Dr. Leo Eitinger (Benjamin L. Røsler). —Alissa Simon, Variety, 9 Sep. 2024

Guy Pearce supports as the wealthy, perhaps nefarious patron who hires him to construct a library that all too closely resembles the concentration camp Tóth survived. —Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 2 Sep. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

concentration camp

noun

: a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained