Firstly, please no offensive answers here... concentration camps were disgusting and we should all be ashamed that human beings were even capable of inventing them.
I'm just wondering why were they called concentration camps? I'm thinking it may have something to do with fooling the victims to go to them but why the word 'concentration'?
2007-07-27 00:43:27 · 19 answers · asked by jenny84 4 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
The first 'concentration camps' were used by the British during the Boer War in South Africa.
The purpose then was to round up the wives and children of Boer insurgents and keep them in 'concentration camps'. The idea being that the men [insurgents] would give themselves up to be allowed to live with their wives and children.
The expression 'concentration camp' was used by the Allies in WW2 to describe the camps used by the Nazis for what they called the Final Solution - the extermination of the Jews of Europe - a mass murder and genocide, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 6,000,000 Jews and a further 2,000,000 plus Gentiles.
Internment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated ... The term concentration camp lost some of its original meaning after Nazi ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment
Auschwitz concentration camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia- Beginning in 1940, Nazi Germany built several concentration camps and an extermination camp in the area, which at the time was under German occupation. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp
WWII Concentration Camps - Photographs... of the Holocaust home page, This is a work in progress. Photographs and art of other concentration camps will be added to this exhibit as time goes on.
http://www.remember.org/camps
At school in the 1940s here in UK, I had a friend at school, a Polish Jewish boy who had been brough to UK at the outbreak of war. His family died in the Nazi Holocaust.
The Finns managed to smuggle thousands of Jews through Finland and on into Sweden and to safety.
Mister Oscar Schindler managed to save the lives of 1,000 Jews whom he kept as 'experienced workers' through the years of WW2 in Germany and Poland etc.
A great many Jews were taken out of Europe by the UK.gov in the run up to WW2. It was impossible, just impossible.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM!
The innocent victims of race hate.
2007-07-27 19:32:00 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 1⤋
The Boers (Afrikaans for "farmers") were a largely agrarian people spread throughout the veldt. They were "concentrated" in the camps so the British soldiers could keep an eye on them more easily and thus disrupt the infrastructure of the kommandos.
If you're talking about the German ones, they got the idea from (1) the American reservation system of aboriginal control and genocide and (2) the British concentration camps in the Boer wars.
2007-07-27 04:29:53 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Because all "unwanted elements" were concentrated into one confined area.The modern concentration camp was probably pioneered by the British in the Boer war but records often disagree.
The Nazis removed all unwanted peoples/groups to a certain location where they were kept until they decided what to do with them.Repatriation was the original policy but as the war in Europe escalated this became impossible and by 1941 there existed a policy of mass extermination.
Camps also featured in the old South Africa,Vietnam,Cambodia and wartime Japan.I guess if you go back far enough the invading Romans used a similar concept.
2007-07-27 01:28:13 · answer #3 · answered by david d 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
As noted above, concentration camps existed before the nazis and were just that, a place to pack people together to make it easier to guard them. Usually in deplorable conditions but the first goal was imprisonment, not killing.
When I was at school - some time ago - we had two words for the Nazis camps, concentration and extermination. Depending on the primary goal of the camp you used one or the other. The places were they were gazed on arrival were extermination camps. The places where they died through bad treatment and were used as slave work were concentration camps.
2007-07-27 06:11:00 · answer #4 · answered by Cabal 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Concentration camps were called such because they 'concentrated' one group of people into one specific spot. Or, they tried to anyway. I don't speak Hebrew, but the Germans called concentration camps Konzentrationlager.
2016-05-20 15:09:57 · answer #5 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most of these people are correct, in that the obvious answer is the correct one. The camps were used to contain what regimes call dangerous elements to their society(whether it be the Poles, Jews, etc of WWII or the Cubans during the Cuban insurrections of the late 19th century)
They concentrated their political enemies into one location so that they could keep a better eye on them.
Contrary to some thought, all concentration camps were not death camps. In addition, the idea of concentration camps were around long before Britain during the Boer War.
What do you think prisons are, nothing but a concentration of criminals from every town and county into one larger facility that is easier and cheaper to guard and maintain.
What do you think indian reservations were, keeping the barbarians confined to a small location so that they would not bother the civilized population around the reservation.
What do you think Hadrian's wall was, the concentration of the barbaric tribes to a location outside of civilized Roman Briton.
It is a further modification of placing walls around your city to protect your citizens against enemies which developed into placing walls around your territory to keep the barbarians out and finally came to be placing walls around your enemies to keep them inside.
whale
2007-07-27 01:28:10 · answer #6 · answered by WilliamH10 6 · 4⤊ 0⤋
Apart from the obvious answer? They concentrated all the persons that the state dont want roaming around free and could be a risk to the goverment or state.
Concentration Camps are not just limited to the Nazis regieme either.
2007-07-27 10:27:00 · answer #7 · answered by Kevan M 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm please that 'stickadidle' came up with an answer which included the origins of the idea / philosophy.
As far as I'm aware, the idea in itself of 'concentration camps' orginated in the Crimea War (1853 - 56), and was nothing to do with 'killing' of those concentrated therein. It was a matter of simply rounding-up those people the authorities want to be kept in one place - for one reason or another.
Sash.
2007-07-27 01:18:36 · answer #8 · answered by sashtou 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Most folks have the right answer ie; to concentrate prisoners of war in one secure location.
They were a British invention developed during the Boer War in South Africa ( 1898-1902 ) or thereabouts.
2007-07-27 00:58:55 · answer #9 · answered by stickadiddle 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Never thought about tis before but thinking about it must be the thousands upon thousands of men women and children that we packed into such small confined spaces ie. concentrated!.
The thought of it all makes my skin creep and sickens me that humans beings can treat fellow humans beings this way...and still do even to this day.
2007-07-27 00:50:34 · answer #10 · answered by Boudicca 3 · 2⤊ 1⤋