Talk:Concentration camp/Archive 1

message: why is it that Soviet camps are described in the first line of the article, but nothing else is stated after that? I have been trying to find out information on German WWII POWS and can find absolutely none on wikipedia. I know there is loads of information on the topic out there, but it is nowhere on wikipedia.  I give one big WTF to wikipedia, so much for it being a source of knowledge. I dont know how such a huge website with information about everything on non-importance can miss such a huge section.
--Jadger 04:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At the time you posted your comment, the article had been vandalised and the section on "Russia and the Soviet Union" deleted. It was reinstated shortly afterwards. Pol098 13:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Soviet Camps

message: AFAIK Theresienstadt was not a concentration camp, but a ghetto, and the Nazis put mainly old people there. 
Should we correct this for accuracy's sake or should we leave it as it is a rather pedantic discrimination for most people??
--Korpo
I've seen Theresienstadt defined as a "ghetto" (not sure about correct term, I'm translating directly from spanish here, "gueto de tránsito") by some scholars, like Christopher R. Browning on his book "Ordinary men".
But on the Wiki entry for Theresienstadt, it states that it really was a concentration camp disguised as a normal town, or ghetto. So, I wouldn't change it until we find a normative definition.
--Richy
Theresienstadt was a ghetto and a transit camp (presumably what is meant by "collective point" -- must reword that). There were actually two seperate camps, the small fortress, which was used as a prison camp, and the large fortress which contained the town, and appeared more as a ghetto, though it was mostly a collection point for prisoners who had been transported from other ghettoes in the Reich, before they could be sent to other concentration or extermination camps.
--Paul
Theresienstadt was a garrison town, along with a fort, before the fort became a prison and the town became a ghetto/ concentration camp. Rickyrab 16:06, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Theresienstadt

message: I would greatly appreciate, just by the matter of definition that Guantanamo Bay as a camp were people due to their fighting for what they consider to be freedom are kept under let us say unfortunate circumstances (iron cages, soldiers with german shepherds, interrogations under let us say not really legal circumstances) was mentioned on this page
I don't believe Guantanamo Bay fits the definition even closely -- a concentration camp concentrates a particular group of people in camps.  This is measured in thousands, not in dozens or even hundreds, and generally is noted for indiscriminately rounding people up (a la the Japanese internment during WW2), not for arresting suspected criminals.  Guantanamo Bay is more along the lines of a POW camp in violation of the Geneva Conventions, which is a separate issue. --Delirium 07:53, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)
:From a dictionary: "concentration camp n. 1. A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions." I don't think the number of inmates matters. --Wik 07:59, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)
::I think that definition is a bit too broad.  For example, one often hears of US soldiers held under harsh conditions in North Vietnamese POW camps, but I haven't heard these described as concentration camps.  The latter term seems very much limited to situations where you're basically herding a group of people into camps based on some identifying characteristic, whether they've done anything or not.  If we do expand the definition to include Guantanamo, we also need to include all the POW camps of WW2, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and so on, none of which I think belong in this article. --Delirium 08:02, Aug 6, 2003 (UTC)
::: The key word is "soldiers". The Guantamo concentration camp holds civilians. // Liftarn
:::: Looking at the first paragraph of this article, stating that:
:::: "A 'concentration camp' is a large detention center created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internees are persons selected for their conformance to broad criteria without judicial process, rather than having been judged as individuals. Camps for prisoners of war are usually considered separately from this category, although informally (and in some other languages) they may also be called concentration camps."
:::: I think that Guantanamo Bay can be counted as a concentration camp (unless you want to call it a torture camp), because the center is designated for political opponents, as stated in the definition. Osama bin Laden's driver cannot be considered a prisoner of war, because no war has been declared against his country. Still, he is in Guantanamo Bay. I think that the first three definitions fit most of the estimated 500 inmates (I remember reading this from Amnesty International), who are political opponents of the current govenment of the United States (not of Cuba though...), are aliens in the country where the camp is located and all belong to, with very few exceptions, to a specific ethnic or religious group. I repeat, the inmates of this camp are not prisoners of war, as they have not been granted the status of a POW.
:::: "arresting suspected criminals"
:::: Criminals, as in "driving the wrong guy's car" or as in "trying to delay an invasion force". Would you also count the world war two partisans as criminals? Their activity is very similar when compared to the activity of "terrorists" (well except that jumbo jets did not exist in those times). 
:::: "The key word is "soldiers". The Guantamo concentration camp holds civilians."
:::: Were the Japanese in American concentration camps soldiers? Were the jews, gays, gypsies, gay jews and gay gypsies in Nazi camps soldiers? No.
:::: Were the partisans in some nazi camps soldiers? No. Were they terrorists, as the word is interpreted today? Yes. Were they in comncentration camps? Yes. Why shouldn't then the modern "terrorists" be classified as concentration camp inmates? You tell me. --HJV 22:02, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Guantanamo Bay

message: How many people died in the Rheinwiesenlager?
:To the person who wrote the comment above: I don't know, but Rummell has some estimates at http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP13.HTM Perhaps you could write an article on the Rheinwiesenlager? (Rhine meadow camps?) -- The Anome 13:25, 6 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: Rheinwiesenlager

message: <quote>
... for instance, Amnesty International has criticized the US over allegations of mistreatment, but does not call Guantanamo a concentration camp. 
</quote>
Amnesty is very carefully with its words and on the other site, the word they use can seen as proven facts. They avoid using a hard to define word like Concentration camp and wouldn't have used it for the Camps in Nazi Germany.
----
As so often, words acquire a meaning over time that conflicts with the original meaning - then that meaning is itself applied retrospectively.
Concentration camps were meant to "concentrate" the civilian population. They were not meant to be used to kill the inmates of the camps, or to punish them (they were not accused of any crime), though conditions in the camps were appalling and thousands died.
The Nazis applied the same term to camps that were in fact prison camps, or slave labor camps - a different thing entirely. The "death camps" are now synonymous with "concentration camps" - so we now have to coin a new phrase "internment camps" to describe what the concentration camps actually were - whilst giving Nazi apologists the chance to claim the British invented concentration camps - which while strictly true is extremely misleading.
Example - detention centres for Asylum seekers are "concentration camps" in the original meaning - but are clearly not "concentration camps" in the Nazi sense. 
Exile 15:29, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Amnesty International's phrasing

message: Should the camps for Jews who fleed Europe but were unable to reach Eretz Israel under the British mandate of Palestine because of the immigration quota and therefore were being "concentrated" in Cyprus be also included here? ---Humus sapiens  Talk 00:26, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cyprus? 

message: This is the definition from the OED, printed in 1989:
:7. attrib.: concentration camp, a camp where non-combatants of a district are accommodated, such as those instituted by Lord Kitchener during the South African war of 1899-1902; one for the internment of political prisoners, foreign nationals, etc., esp. as organized by the Nazi regime in Germany before and during the war of 1939-45
Note that Konzentrationslager (abbreviated KZ) is a literal translation from the English term. 
Mackerm 15:26, May 12, 2004 (UTC)
deathcamps.org/websites/jupeng.htm seems up-to-date (List of German KZ camps for future reference). Mackerm 15:43, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This definition was removed form text by kwertii, but the info about Lord Kitchener is nowhere else. Must be restored. Mikkalai 15:52, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concentration camp definition in Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. 

message: I can't find an article on German concentration camps during WWII. There are separate entries for Holocaust, Final solution, different camps listed separately, there is even a list of Camps in Poland during World War II. However, I can't find a list of all German camps during WWII wherever they were. Is there such a list? Halibutt 23:55, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)
:I found this a while ago: deathcamps.org/websites/jupeng.htm
:Mackerm 00:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  German concentration camps 

message: I disagree with the changed definition. I plan to replace it with the Oxford English Dictionary'd def. because it is a touchy subject.
The entries should also be kept in chronological order, rather than alphabetical. That's the way the page was originally, and it gradually got mixed up. Mackerm 05:56, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Ropers' Sept 11 edit

message: Has Israel ever put Palestinians in concentration camps? The Gaza Strip looks suspiciously like a very big concentration camp to me, who's never been there, but reads about it. Rickyrab 05:58, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Israel/ Sabra and Shatila Massacre

message: This article has been prefixed "This article should include material from ESMA". I have the opinion that it should not, and that this comment should be deleted, and the separate article on ESMA (which I had expanded) should also be deleted, but will leave it to others to decide.
There was originally a short section on camps in Argentina; and a separate article on ESMA, which was just one among many camps. I expanded the section on camps in Argentina, and included a link to a paper which, amongst other things, lists all known camps. Either no details of any camps should be included (as they are well documented in the link given); or a list of all camps should be included (possibly as a separate article). Singling out ESMA, alone, seems an aberration. 213.208.107.91 23:41, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "This article should include material from ESMA" 

message: :During the early part of the colonial period, such camps were used mostly to forcably remove Arabs, Berbers and Turks from the fertile areas of land and settle primarlily French, Spanish and Maltese settlers. It has been estimated that between 1830 and 1900 between 15 and 25% of the Algerian population died in such camps.
Do we have references for that? I must say that this is the first time I have heard of any such camps in the early French colonization in Algeria. David.Monniaux 09:24, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  early French colonization in North Africa 

message: Please have a short look. I didn't know these US-details. ( http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konzentrationslager )
[quote]
USA
Zu Beginn des 2. Weltkrieges richteten die USA Concentration-Camps für alle potentiell gefährlich werden könnenden Bürger japanischer oder deutscher Abstammung ein. Bekannt wurden insbesondere die kalifornischen Camps, weil sich dort die meisten japanstämmischen Familien aufhielten. Gerichtsbeschluss war weder damals noch heute nötig für die Zwangseinweisungen.
Heute betreiben die USA Konzentrationslager auf Kuba (US-Stützpunkt Guantanamo Bay) und auf einigen weniger bekannten Inseln im Pazifik. Es genügt der Vorwurf, einer bestimmten Gruppe anzugehören. Neben diesen Offshore-Konzentrationslagern betreiben die USA auch Konzentrationslager auf US-Territorium. (vgl. [8] (http://www.bunkahle.com/Forum/YaBB.cgi?board=neues;action=display;num=1097833121))
Eine besondere Form neuzeitiger US-KZs stellen die Tiefbunker-KZs dar, die in vielen US-Bundesstaaten neuerdings entstanden sind, bei denen an der Oberfläche ein freundliches, überschaubares Verwaltungsgebäude hinter Stacheldraht steht, und die Insassen mehrere Stockwerke tief niemals das Tageslicht zu sehen bekommen. Meist sitzen dort Lebenslängliche, Mörder und sonstige nie wieder die Freiheit bekommen sollende Personen dort in hochmodernen Kaninchenställen bis zu ihrem Ende. Einen Aufruhr oder Protest dort ist noch nie bekannt geworden.
Die US-Konzentrationslager dienen nicht der gezielten Vernichtung. Unzweifelhaft ist jedoch, dass die "Haltungsbedingungen" der Internierten, welche von Menschenrechtsorganisationen scharf gerügt werden, geeignet sind, um die Insassen der Konzentrationslager physisch und psychisch zugrunde zu richten. [9]
[quote/]
If this bold-marked information should be correct ... --217.64.171.188 10:14, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: anybody here who understands German well?

message: The following section deleted. This article about very specific term: "concentration camp" , and there is no reason to have a section about some similarly sounding word, not to say with incorrect explanation.
:--Cuba--
:The word "concentration" in the context of forcible internment was first used during the Third Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898) by the then Spanish military governor, Valeriano Weyler. Weyler's policy of "reconcentración" () resulted in the mass movement of rural populations to suburban areas of large cities, in an effort to cut off the widespread support the Cuban rebel government then enjoyed. The measure was a product of Spanish desperation at its army's mounting losses in men and territory to the rebels, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths (largely of women, children and the elderly) to disease, overcrowding, and exposure. The policy left a bitter legacy in the Cuban political consciousness, felt even to this day, and the worldwide horror that such an atrocity inspired (fomented by the yellow journalism of the Hearst newspapers) rallied support in the United States for a war against Spain.
*It was reconcentraion", not concentration
*It was "resettlement" or population transfer, not "internment"
*Such movement of population is not Cuban/Spanish invention
*We are not going to explain who first used the word "camp", do we?
*If it was a notable phenomenon, why not write a separate article about it?
mikka (t) 16:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  cuba deleted 

message: Roma people has been nominated to be improved on the Improvement Drive. Support this article with your vote and help us improve it to featured status!--Fenice 10:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Article Improvement Drive|Improvement Drive]]

message: The entire section on Argentina was deleted, without explanation:
16:54, 16 February 2006 207.232.162.3 (→Argentina)
I have reinstated it. If anybody notices a repetition, perhaps they would care to re-reinstate. The content is here (comment updated 1Mar06): 
08:30, 1 March 2006 Gbinal 
Pol098 23:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Argentina 

message: In the introduction to the article, it states that "The word 'concentration' indicates a regional concentration, or to collect the group desired, but it also implies the crowded, and often unhealthy, state of the facilities" - a somewhat confusing description in and of itself. However, the history and usage section says that "The term 'concentration camp' was coined at this time [the Boer War] to signify the 'concentration' of a large number of people in one place." The second statement seems to imply that in fact, the "crowded, and often unhealthy, state of the facilities" is in fact the primary reason for the use of the term "concentration" to describe a camp. Perhaps the first statement should be changed to reflect this? [Oops, forgot to sign my comment. SeaworthyViolin 00:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of "concentration" 

message: User:Donnog has made some pretty dramatic changes to the article; let's discuss them here. To me, they seem strongly POV. --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 16:15, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Donnog's changes 

message: Is it just me, or is having a link to the Prison Planet (anti-NWO website) article out of place here? Just because the authors of that site believe "that there are concentration camps being constructed in the U.S. to house anyone that is considered a threat" doesn't make on par with links to articles of actual concentration camps. --mtz206 12:38, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to Prison Planet? 

message: Do we really need the Holocaust template in the Germany section?  And if we do, could someone maybe fix it so it doesn't generate so much whitespace? --jpgordon∇∆∇∆ 03:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Holocaust template 

message: I think this page, and Internment should be replaced with something like Wikipedia:Sandbox/Internment. The country by country listing on this page should move to List of concentration and internment camps.
Any discussion?
-- TheMightyQuill 16:13, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I essentially agree. At this heading I suggested making the article "concentration camp" a discussion of the term. If kids want to put their after-school detention in a seperate list of concentration camps, it'll do less damage. Mackerm 18:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed New Page