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

Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland argues that artworks made by prisoners forced to do so in Nazi concentration camps are not their legal property. — Devorah Lauter, ARTnews.com, 18 Sep. 2026

Krieps played the notorious wife of a Nazi concentration camp commander, Ilsa Koch, who was said to torture prisoners and make household objects out of human skin. — Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 18 Sep. 2026

Masha Rolski was 14 when World War II reached Lithuania, and 18 when British troops freed her from the Nazis’ Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. — Daniella Greenbaum Davis, Washington Post, 16 Sep. 2026

In the 1930s, the Nazi government used a variety of forms of public data including tax returns and census records to help identify Jews who would be rounded up and sent to concentration camps where millions were killed. — Hannah Fry, Los Angeles Times, 6 Sep. 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