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

So, by the time thousands of Americans of Japanese descent were imprisoned in remote concentration camps during World War II, baseball was already an integral part of many of their lives. —Jill Cowan, New York Times, 31 Mar. 2024

Six years later, as Kahneman was finishing first grade, the Nazis invaded France, and his family was forced to wear the yellow star that marked Jews for mass deportations to concentration camps. —Diksha Madhok, CNN, 28 Mar. 2024

Over 10,000 Japanese Americans passed through the concentration camp during its brief existence, according to the National Park Service. —Emi Tuyetnhi Tran, NBC News, 16 Feb. 2024

Our Story is also being performed in honor of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, an event that also marks the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and for the prevention of crimes against humanity. —The Enquirer, 7 Mar. 2024

Leon Weintraub, a 97-year-old resident of Stockholm, was 19 when, diagnosed with typhus, he was liberated from the concentration camp at Auschwitz by the French army. —Lenora Chu, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Jan. 2024

The approximately 20 survivors from surrounding Nazi concentration camps gathered to lay wreaths and flowers and to light candles at the Death Wall in Auschwitz, where the Nazis executed thousands of inmates. —Sarah Rumpf-Whitten, Fox News, 28 Jan. 2024

The Nazi concentration camp drama The Zone of Interest, from the independent studio A24, won best international film. —Thomas Buckley, Fortune, 11 Mar. 2024

In that production’s chilling last scene, Alan Cumming’s louche Emcee removes a black trench coat to reveal a concentration camp uniform; a burst of bright white light follows, from, presumably, a firing squad. —Adrienne Miller, Vogue, 5 Mar. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1901, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

concentration camp

noun

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