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
David RemnickShe ended up dying in a concentration camp, just a few months before she would have been liberated.—Marilyn Reynolds
Marilyn ReynoldsThe 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
Anna Tomforde et al.Examples of concentration camp in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
That comes from my grandfather, who survived a concentration camp.
—Ben Croll, Variety, 19 May 2025
Ravensbrück, located 50 miles north of Berlin, was a concentration camp built for women, where as many as 40,000 perished before the war’s end.
—Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2025
Andrew Stern was born in 1944 in a basement in the Jewish Ghetto in Budapest, Hungary; his father survived multiple concentration camps.
—Malina Saval, HollywoodReporter, 14 May 2025
The mass arrests, at first of mostly non-Jewish Poles, led the Nazis to construct new prison camps or refurbish existing structures, like the former military barracks in Oswiecim, Poland, which opened as the Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940.
—Paul Hockenos, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 May 2025
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Ben Croll, Variety, 19 May 2025
Ravensbrück, located 50 miles north of Berlin, was a concentration camp built for women, where as many as 40,000 perished before the war’s end.
—Chris Vognar, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2025
Andrew Stern was born in 1944 in a basement in the Jewish Ghetto in Budapest, Hungary; his father survived multiple concentration camps.
—Malina Saval, HollywoodReporter, 14 May 2025
The mass arrests, at first of mostly non-Jewish Poles, led the Nazis to construct new prison camps or refurbish existing structures, like the former military barracks in Oswiecim, Poland, which opened as the Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940.
—Paul Hockenos, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for concentration camp
Cite this Entry
“Concentration camp.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concentration%20camp. Accessed 29 May. 2025.
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