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

The movie includes footage of real historical tragedies — harrowing video from liberated concentration camps — along with contemporaneous ones, like the crash of PSA Flight 182, which happened less than two months before Faces of Death was released. —Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 10 Apr. 2026

The item, a square from a prisoner’s Nazi concentration camp uniform with a pink triangle and number on it, has since been displayed in a special case. —Ashley MacKin Solomon, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 Apr. 2026

Historians say Lutz helped prevent half of the Jewish population of Budapest from being sent to Nazi concentration camps. —Adam Harrington, CBS News, 8 Apr. 2026

Some like Sarkar equated a detention center in Dublin to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II or to the Jewish concentration camps of Nazi Germany. —Chase Hunter, Mercury News, 8 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for concentration camp

• amp
• champ
• clamp
• cramp
• damp
• gamp
• lamp
• ramp
• samp
• scamp
• stamp
• tamp

Kids Definition

concentration camp

noun

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