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

Britain was being relentlessly bombed by the Luftwaffe, Germany had invaded France, Belgium, and Holland, and the concentration camp at Auschwitz had opened. —Literary Hub, 27 Feb. 2026

Max Silnicki, who runs the Washington Avenue Barber Shop, shaved the heads of 10,000 Jews in Nazi concentration camps before they were cremated. —Miami Herald Archives, Miami Herald, 27 Feb. 2026

To disassociate Braunau from Hitler’s legacy, the town government in 1989 placed a granite block from the Mauthausen concentration camp quarry before the building, inscribed with a memorial to the victims of fascism. —Cary Lowe, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 Feb. 2026

Anka Bergman went into labor as the Nazi death train she was packed onto arrived at the Mauthausen concentration camp, where more than 95,000 prisoners died during the Holocaust. —Lesley Stahl, CBS News, 16 Feb. 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