Which was better Internment or consentration camps?

Question

I can't figure it out, I would really like to know what made them differnt.

why is it better?

Answer 1

Internment. Its mostly because of who ran them.

The US and its allies put people into internment camps. They were, in essence, holding facilities. Life wasn't terrific, but it wasn't bad or hard.

Concentration camps were intended to make the stay there feel like prison. The people were sometimes forced to do hard labor, sometimes left with nothing at all to do.

Answer 2

Internment camps were US done. While there are many reports of abuses they were still very light. Of course these people were still denied their freedom for unsound reasons-sometimes merely because a grandparent had immigrated from Japan. Many of the people taken had no direct ties outside of the US and were targeted purely for race.

Concentration camps were initially work camps. They were slave labor, not death camps. They were little different than the ghettos in the very beginning. Granted food was kept to a minimum, but there was too much work to be done to be killing people.

However, the concentration camps took a huge turn once social projects were no longer needed to stimulate the economy. That is the point at which they became death camps and comparison is no longer valid.

Answer 3

Technically, it is a matter of semantics. They were identical in scope, but the U.S. used the term internment for such camps in the U.S. and concentration camps for those established by the Germans during WW2.

From an operational standpoint, "concentration" camps were nothing more than non-military POW camps, where life expectancy was very short. They had no rights or privileges and very little provisions for survival. "Internment" camps, at least in the U.S. operated ones, internees were allowed a few more comforts of home, they just couldn't leave the camp.

Plus there is the propaganda point of view. "Nazi concentration camp" has a greater impact than "Nazi internment camp," but fit the situation better. "Japanese internment camp," regardless of how you feel about them, 'sounded' better.

Answer 4

The difference? Quite easy. In a concentration camp the chances are that you would end up dead. Not so in an internment camp (altho' I'm not saying it didn't happen). It's no a question, however, of what's 'better'. It's just which was the least worst.

Answer 5

If you take the actual meanings of the words there's no real difference. They both mean the confinement of a group of people, usually during war time. However due to association with certain actions such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II, internment camp has a somewhat less horrific connotation than concentration camp. Due to the excesses of the Nazi regime during WW II the term "Concentration camp" has come to equate "Extermination Camp". Therefore due to usage the term interment has come to not be as negative as concentration.

Answer 6

Internment camps. different placements. Weather was the one factor that was different. Treatment was the same from one to the other. They were scattered all over the western states.

Concentration camps were more like POW camps. They were treated harsher there.

Answer 7

Probably the one difference is that there were young men in the US internment camps that joined the US military. I doubt there were very many Jews that joined the German army....

Answer 8

Internment camps weren't built and maintained to systematically work and murder their inhabitants. Concentration camps were designed so once you were herded through the gates you never left alive.

Answer 9

Interment meant that you were just stuck somewhere, being held indefinitely. Life wasn't great, but it was passable.

In a concentration camp, you were there to be slowly killed. You were used for hard labor and barely fed. No way to stay clean, no medical care that wasn't experimental.

Answer 10

That's like being asked if you would rather be shot or stabbed, don't you think?