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

His mother, who was in attendance Sunday, was born in a Nazi concentration camp, while Bennet told the crowd at the hotel in downtown Denver that much of his Polish mother’s family were killed in the Holocaust. —Seth Klamann, Denver Post, 15 Mar. 2026

His teenage years were spent in concentration camps. —Dewayne Bevil, The Orlando Sentinel, 13 Mar. 2026

Disputes over Israel recently erupted at the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, as both Israel’s critics and its defenders claim the Holocaust for their terrain. —Shira Li Bartov, Sun Sentinel, 9 Mar. 2026

Stop the warehouse conversions to concentration camps. —Voice Of The People, New York Daily News, 4 Mar. 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