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 prominent mention of Frank, who died of disease in a Nazi concentration camp after her family’s hiding place was betrayed, adds to a growing discourse about whether ICE’s operations targeting immigrants in Minnesota can be compared to the Nazis’ tactics in rooting out Jews during the Holocaust. —Philissa Cramer, Sun Sentinel, 26 Jan. 2026

Henie plays a young woman, caught in a love triangle, whose father has escaped from a concentration camp. —Natasha O'Neill, Vanity Fair, 26 Jan. 2026

Another speaker, Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, spoke about his father’s family experience during the Holocaust when they were imprisoned at the Bergen-Belson concentration camp — the same one where Anne Frank died shortly before liberation. —Sal Pizarro, Mercury News, 26 Jan. 2026

Weeks after the end of the war, more than 1,600 Dakota people, mostly women, children and the elderly, were marched hundreds of miles to a concentration camp nearby, according to the Minnesota Historical Society, and as many as 300 people died while they were detained over that winter. —Elise Hammond, CNN Money, 23 Jan. 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