| Concentration Camp |
Article Index for Concentration |
Articles about Concentration Camp |
Website Links For Concentration |
Information AboutConcentration Camp |
|
A concentration camp is a large Detention center created for Political Opponents , Enemy Aliens , specific Ethnic or Religious Groups , Civilian s of a critical War -zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term is used for facilities whose inmates are selected according to some criteria, rather than individuals who are incarcerated after Due Process Of Law fairly applied by a Judiciary . Camps For Prisoners Of War (POW camps) are not usually called ''concentration camps'' although informally, and in some languages, they may be. 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. The first camps to bear the name were set up by the British Empire during the Boer War . Before and during the Second World War Nazi Germany set up camps called ''concentration camps'' (Konzentrationslager, abbreviated KZ) which were initially intended to concentrate those considered by the regime as undesirable on ethnic or political grounds; they were initially treated harshly and in many cases made to work as virtual slaves. Later camps were set up which were designed simply to exterminate those consigned to them as efficiently as possible. The Soviet Union under Stalin set up camps, not actually called ''concentration camps'', whose objective was to incarcerate ethnic groups, those considered politically undesirable, and criminals. Inmates were worked as slaves, severely mistreated, executed for trivial "offences" committed while in the camp, and starved to death recklessly in huge numbers, but they do not appear to have been extermination camps as such. (Many other people were imprisoned and Execute d, but not as part of the camp system.) (In many cases in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union those sent to camps were first subjected to some form of Trial to lend a veneer of apparent legality to the procedure, but it is generally accepted that this was a sham.) The term ''concentration camp'' lost its original relatively innocent meaning when the Nazi camps were discovered, and has ever since been understood to refer to a place of mistreatment, starvation, forced labour, and murder. The expression since then has only been used in this extremely pejorative sense; no government or organization has used it to describe its own facilities, using instead terms such as Internment camp, resettlement camp, detention facility, etc. __TOC__ HISTORY AND USAGE OF THE TERM 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 Early civilisations such as the Assyria ns used forced resettlement of populations as a means of controlling territory, but it was not until much later that records exist of groups of civilians being concentrated into large prison camps. In the English-speaking world, the term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the 1899 - 1902 Second Boer War . Originally conceived as a form of humanitarian aid to the families whose farms had been destroyed in the fighting, the camps were later used to confine and control large numbers of civilians in areas of Boer guerilla activity. Tens of thousands of Boer civilians, and black workers from their farms, died as a result of diseases developed due to overcrowding, inadequate diets and poor sanitation. The term "concentration camp" was coined at this time to signify the "concentration" of a large number of people in one place, and was used to describe both the camps in South Africa (1899-1902) and those established by the Spanish to support a similar anti-insurgency campaign in Cuba (circa 1895-1898 although at least some Spanish sources disagree with the comparison [http://www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/weyler.html . Over the course of the twentieth century, the arbitrary Internment of civilians by the authority of the state became more common and reached a climax with the practice of Genocide in the Death Camp s of the Nazi regime in Germany, and with the Gulag system of Forced Labor Camp s of the Soviet Union . As a result of this trend, the term "concentration camp" carries many of the connotations of "extermination camp" and is sometimes used synonymously. A concentration camp, however, is not by definition a death-camp. Since the nature of Germany's so-called "concentration camps" became known, the term is sometimes used as Propaganda , with greater or lesser justification, to imply that a camp is designed to exterminate, rather than merely to concentrate, its inmates. For example, many of the slave-labor concentration camps were used by major German corporate manufacturers as cheap or free sources of factory labor. The term is not often applied to camps such as Andersonville during the American Civil War . Although large numbers of prisoners were concentrated there in horrific conditions from 1863 to 1865 , and perhaps a quarter of them died, the prisoners were combatants and the camp is generally classified as a POW Camp . What follows is a brief history of concentration camps established by various countries and regimes. Argentina During the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, there were about 100 places throughout the country that served as concentration camps in the Nazi sense, where people were interrogated, tortured, and killed, but not forced to work or concentrated for eventual release. Prisoners were often forced to hand and sign over property, in acts of individual, rather than official and systematic, corruption. Small children who were taken with their relatives, and babies born to prisoners, were frequently given for adoption to politically acceptable, often military, families. This is documented by a number of cases dating since the 1990s in which adopted children have identified their real families. These were relatively small secret detention centres rather than actual camps. The peak years were 1976-78. Nearly 9,000 people are definitely known to have been killed: see the authoritative 1984 CONADEP (Argentine National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons) Report. It states that "We have reason to believe that the true figure is much higher"; a figure of 30,000 is often quoted. This worst case total figure, although frightful, is a small fraction of the throughput of just one of the smaller Nazi camps. A list of camps, full details, and documentation are to be found in the Report. External links Austria-Hungary During the First World War , internment camps were set up, mostly for Serbs and other pro-Serbian Yugoslav s. Men, women, the children and the elderly were displaced from their homes and sent to concentration camps all over the Empire such as Doboj (46,000), Arad , Győr , Neusiedl Am See . Some 20 thousand pro-Russian Ukrainians were incarcerated in concentration camp Talerhof (Austrian province of Styria ) from September 4 , 1914 until May 10 1917 . A full third of the prisoners held died. Bosnia and Herzegovina According to the Alliance of Detainees of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period between operated by one of the three armies, sorted in alphabetical order:
Finland In the aftermath of the Finnish Civil War of 1918 , some 75,000 enemy prisoners of war of the losing side and suspected Communists were incarcerated in camps. While 125 Communist prisoners were convicted of Treason and executed, an estimated 12,000 died of disease and starvation and an unknown number lost their lives after release, some of them shot after return to their home villages. When the Finnish Army during the Continuation War occupied East Karelia 1941 – 1944 that was inhabited by ethnically related Finnic Karelians (although it never had been a part of Finland — or before 1809 of Sweden-Finland ), several concentration camps were set up for Russian civilians. The first camp was set up on 24 October , 1941 , in Petrozavodsk . The two largest groups were 6,000 Russian refugees and 3,000 inhabitants from the southern bank of River Svir forcibly evacuated because of the closeness of the front line. Around 4,000 of the prisoners perished due to malnourishment, 90% of them during the spring and summer 1942. The ultimate goal was to move the Russian speaking population to German-occupied Russia in exchange for any Finnic population from these areas, and also help to watch civilians. Population in the Finnish camps:
France Under Nazi occupation, the Natzweiler-Struthof camp, in Alsace, was one Nazi-run concentration camp on French soil during the Second World War -- the three departments of Alsace-Lorraine (Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and Moselle) had been annexed and incorporated into the Third Reich. The French authorities also ran deportation camps such as the one at Drancy . Camps also existed in the Pyrenees , on the border with pro-Nazi Spain, one of which was called Camp De Gurs . During France's occupation of Algeria , large numbers of Algerians were forced into "tent cities" and concentration camps both during the initial French invasion in 1830s, and particularly during the Algerian War Of Independence . During the early part of the colonial period, camps were used mostly to forcibly remove Arabs, Berbers and Turks from fertile areas of land and replace them by primarily French, Spanish, and Maltese settlers. It has been estimated that from 1830 to 1900, between 15 and 25% of the Algerian population died in such camps. During the Algerian War Of Independence the populations of whole villages which were suspected to have supported the rebel FLN were incarcerated in such camps. Germany ''Main article: , Holocaust '' Concentration camps (''Konzentrationslager'' or ''KZ'') rose to notoriety during their use in Germany during the Nazi era. The general populace referred to them as '' Kah-Tzets '' (the initials KZ in German). The Nazi regime maintained concentration camps as Labor Camp s and prisons since the beginning of their regime in 1933 . After the beginning of the war, they also established Extermination Camp s for the industrialized mass murder of the Jews of Europe, called the Holocaust , starting in 1941. Over three million Jews would die in these extermination camps, which included Belzec , Sobibor , Treblinka , and Auschwitz-Birkenau . The victims were primarily killed by gassing, usually in Gas Chambers , although many prisoners were murdered in mass shootings or perished from hard labor and a starvation diet. Prisoners in Nazi concentration and labor camps were also treated horrifically, and many died: worked to death on short rations and in bad conditions, or killed if they became unable to work. Slave labor was used by many German companies, who established their own sub-camps. Guards were known to engage in target practice, using their prisoners as targets. During World War II , these concentration camps for "undesirables" were spread throughout Europe, with new camps being created near centers of dense "undesirable" populations, often focusing on areas with large populations of Jews, Polish intelligentsia, communists, or Roma . Most of the camps were located in the area of the General Government in occupied Poland. The transportation of prisoners was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail freight cars, in which many died before they reached their destination. Concentration camps for Jews and other "undesirables" also existed in Germany itself, and while not specifically designed for systematic extermination, like the Extermination Camps , many concentration camp prisoners died because of harsh conditions or were executed. It is estimated that up to ten million people died in Nazi concentration camps, of them six million were killed in the 15 larger ones. Italy
People's Republic of China Concentration camps in the People's Republic Of China are called Laogai , which means "reform through labor". The communist-era camps began at least in the 1960s and were filled with anyone who had said anything critical of the government, or often just random people grabbed from their homes to fill quotas. The entire society was organized into small groups in which loyalty to the government was enforced, so that anyone with dissident viewpoints was easily identifiable for enslavement. These camps were modern slave Labor Camp s, organized like factories. There are accusations that Chinese labor camp produce products are often sold in foreign countries with the profits going to the PRC government. Products include everything from green tea to industrial engines to coal dug from mines. The use of prison labor is an interesting case study of the interaction between capitalism and prison labor. On the one hand, the downfall of socialism has reduced revenue to local governments increasing pressure for local governments to attempt to supplement their income using prison labor. On the other hand, prisoners do not make a good workforce, and the products produced by prison labor in China are of extremely low quality and have become unsellable on the open market in competition with products made by ordinary paid labor. An insider's view from the 1950s to the 1990s is detailed in the books of Harry Wu , including ''Troublemaker'' and ''The Laogai''. He spent almost all of his adult life as a prisoner in these camps for criticizing the government while he was a young student in college. He almost died several times, but eventually escaped to the US. Party officials have argued that he far overstates the present role of Chinese Labor Camp s and ignores the tremendous changes that have occurred in China since then. See also: Human Rights In The People's Republic Of China External Link: Report about products produced under forced labor (focuses on the persecution of Falun Gong) Poland Following the Second World War the Soviet-installed Stalinist regime in Poland erected 1,255 concentrations camps for German civilians in the eastern parts of Germany that were occupied and annexed by Communist Poland. The inmates were mostly civilians that had not been able to flee the advancing Red Army or had not wanted to leave their homes. Often were entire villages including babies and small children sent to the concentrations camps, the only reason being they spoke German. Some of them were also Polish citizens. Many anticommunists were also sent to concentration camps. The death rate in the camps were between 20 and 50 %. Some of the most infamous concentration camps were Toszek/Tost, Lamsdorf, Potulice, Świętochłowice/Schwientochlowitz . Inmates in the camps were abused, tortured, maltreated, exterminated and deliberately given low food rations and epidemies were created. Some of the best known concentration camp commanders were Lola Potok , Czeslaw Geborski and Salomon Morel . Several of them, including Morel, were Jewish Communists. Morel is currently hiding in Israel, and has been charged for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity by Poland. The American Red Cross, the US Senator Langer of North-Dacota, the British embassador Bentinck and the British prime minister Winston Churchill protested against the Polish concentration camps, and demanded that the Communist authorities in Soviet-occupied Poland respected the Geneva Conventions and international law, however internationals protests were ignored by the Communists. At least between 60,000 and 80,000 German civilians were murdered in the Communist Polish concentration camps. Russia and the Soviet Union In Imperial Russia , Labor Camp s were known under the name '' Katorga ''. In the Soviet Union , concentration camps were called simply ''camps'', almost always plural ("lagerya"). These were used as forced Labor Camp s, and were often filled with political prisoners. After Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's book they have become known to the rest of the world as ''Gulags'' , after the branch of NKVD (state security service) that managed them. (In the Russian Language , the term is used to denote the whole system, rather than individual camps.) In addition to what is sometimes referred to as the GULAG proper (consisting of the "corrective labor camps") there were "corrective labor colonies", originally intended for prisoners with short sentences, and "special resettlements" of deported peasants. At its peak, the system held a combined total of 2,750,000 prisoners. The total number of people who passed through the camps is, of course, much larger. There are records of reference to concentration camps by Soviet officials (including Lenin) as early as December 1917. While the primary purpose of Soviet camps was not mass extermination of prisoners, in many cases the outcome was death or permanent disabilities. The total documentable deaths in the corrective-labor system from 1934 to 1953 amount to 1,054,000, including political and common prisoners; this does not include nearly 800,000 executions of "counterrevolutionaries" outside the camp system. From 1932 to 1940, at least 390,000 peasants died in places of peasant resettlement; this figure may overlap with the above, but, on the other hand, it does not include deaths outside the 1932-1940 period, or deaths among non-peasant internal exiles. Indirect estimates by some authors state that as many as 40,000,000 Soviet civilians died in camps, starved, or were executed between 1917 and 1957. For example, in some uranium mines the average life expectancy of a prisoner, forced to mine radioactive ore, was as low as 6 months. During the war years 1941-1945 the life expectancy of a prisoner was even shorter. After the WWII, some 3,000,000 German Soldiers And Civilians Were Sent To Soviet Labor Camps , as part of Reparations by labor force. Only about 2,000,000 returned to Germany. A special kind of forced labor, informally called '' Sharashka '', was for engineering and scientific labor. The famous Soviet rocket designer Sergey Korolev worked in a "sharashka", as did Lev Termen and many other prominent Russians. Solzhenitsyn's book The First Circle describes life in a ''sharashka''. An extensive List Of Gulag Camps is being compiled based on official sources. Serbia
Slovakia During the Second World War, the Slovak government made a small number (Novaky, Sered) of transit camps for Jewish citizens. They were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Ravensbruck concentration camps. For German help with Aryanization of Slovakia, the Slovak government paid a fee of 500 Reichsmark per Jew. Netherlands During WWII , one of few official Nazi concentration camp complexes in western Europe located outside of Germany and Austria was near 's-Hertogenbosch , known in German as ''Herzogenbusch'', see List Of Subcamps Of Herzogenbusch . Still another one was camp Westerbork , which served as a transit camp (''Durchgangslager'') of Jews (Dutch and refugees) and Gypsies to extermination camps of Auschwitz and Sobibór . (Westerbork had been built in 1939 by the Dutch government for interning Jewish refugees.) North Korea ''Main article: Human Rights In North Korea '' Location of Known Concentration Camps ''North Province of Hamkyong-Life Imprisonment Zone'' 1. Onsong Changpyong Family Camp No. 12 (relocated in May 1987) 2. Chongsong Family Camp No. 13 (relocated in December 1990) 3. Hoeryong Family Camp No. 22 4. Chongjin Singles' Prison No. 25 5. Kyongsong Family Camp No. 11 (relocated in October 1989) 6. Hwasong Family Camp No. 16 ''South Province of Hamkyong'' 7. Yodok Offenders and Family Camp No. 15 (sectors for re-education and life imprisonment) ''North Province of Pyong'an'' 8. Chonma Family Camp No. 27 (relocated in November 1990) ''South Province of Pyong'an'' 9. Kaechon Family Camp No. 14 10. Pyongyang Seungho Area Hwachon dong Offender's Camp No. 26 (relocated in January 1990) North Korea is known to operate five concentration camps, currently accommodating a total of over 200,000 prisoners, though the only one that has allowed outside access is Camp #15 in Yodok , South Hamgyong Province . Once condemned as political criminals in North Korea, the defendant and his or her family are incarcerated in one of the camps without trial and cut off from all outside contact. Prisoners reportedly work 14 hour days at hard labor and/or ideological re-education. Starvation and disease are commonplace. Political criminals invariably receive life sentences, however their families are usually released after 3 year sentences, if they pass political examinations after extensive study. Concentration camps came into being in North Korea in the wake of the country's liberation from Japanese colonial rule at the end of World War II. Those persons considered "adversary class forces", such as landholders, Japanese collaborators, religious devotees and families of those who migrated to the South, were rounded up and detained in a large facility. Additional camps were established later in earnest to incarcerate political victims in power struggles in the late 1950s and 60s and their families and overseas Koreans who migrated to the North. The number of camps saw a marked increase later in the course of cementing the Kim Il Sung dictatorship and the Kim Jong-il succession. About a dozen concentration camps were in operation until the early 1990s, the figure of which is believed to have been curtailed to five today due to increasing criticism of the North's perceived human rights abuses from the international community and the North's internal situation. Perhaps the most well-known depiction of life in the North Korean camps has been provided by Kang Chol-hwan in his memoir The Aquariums Of Pyongyang . United States The first large-scale confinement of a specific ethnic group in detention centers began in the summer of . Throughout the remainder of the Indian Wars , various populations of Native Americans were rounded up, trekked across country and put into detention, some for as long as 27 years. On December 7, 1901, during the , (Yale University Press, 1982). p. 208 Between 1935 and 1937, the National Park Service forcibly relocated 437 families from what is now Shenandoah National Park into "resettlements" administered by the Department Of Agriculture's Resettlement Administration, then burned or removed their homes. During World Wars I and II, many people deemed to be a threat due to enemy connections were interned in the US. This included people not born in the U.S. and also U.S. citizens of Japanese (in WWII) and German ancestry. In particular, over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were sent to camps such as Manzanar during the second World War. Some compensation for property losses was paid in 1948, and the U.S. government officially apologized for the internment in 1988, saying that it was based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership", and paid reparations to former inmates who were still alive. Some critics have described the incarceration facility for detainees stated to be enemy combatants or associated with terrorism (but not formally accused, or subject to legal process) at Camp X-Ray in Guantánamo Bay as a concentration camp. No government, and few organizations, seem willing to use these words; for instance, Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. treatment of detainees, but does not refer to Camp X-Ray as a concentration camp. According to Prison Planet , the US is allegedly building concentration camps/prison camps to imprison anyone considered a threat to the National Security Interests of the U.S. and the alleged New World Order. In February 2006 a United Nations report called on the United States to immediately close the Guantánamo Bay facility, listing abuses and violations of human rights and of medical ethics, and saying that certain practices at the prison camp "must be assessed as amounting to torture" and go beyond what international law permits. The U.S. rejected the report's findings {Link without Title} . SEE ALSO
EXTERNAL LINKS
NOTES
|