Meaning & use
concentration camp
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A guarded place where large numbers of people are held prisoner without trial, often in very harsh conditions.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a concentration camp' or 'concentration camps'.
Patterns
- a concentration camp for someone
- in a concentration camp
- be sent to a concentration camp
The museum stands on the site of a former concentration camp.
Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps during the war.
Conditions in the concentration camp were brutal and many prisoners died.
nouncountable
A camp where civilians are forced to live, especially during a war, because of their ethnicity, religion, or political views.
Grammar: Countable; often used in historical or human-rights contexts.
Patterns
- a concentration camp for civilians
- survivors of a concentration camp
The government set up concentration camps for people who opposed the regime.
Survivors of the concentration camp shared their stories with students.
International law now prohibits the use of concentration camps.
Word forms
| plural | concentration camps |
|---|
Common combinations
- former concentration camp
- The former concentration camp is now a memorial site.
- Nazi concentration camp
- He wrote a book about his time in a Nazi concentration camp.
- survivor of a concentration camp
- She is a survivor of a concentration camp in Poland.
- be sent to a concentration camp
- Many intellectuals were sent to concentration camps.
- liberate a concentration camp
- Allied forces liberated the concentration camp in 1945.
Synonyms and how they differ
- death camp
- A death camp is specifically designed for mass murder, while a concentration camp may also be used for forced labor or detention.
- labor camp
- A labor camp focuses on forced work; a concentration camp may involve forced labor but also serves as a detention center.
- internment camp
- An internment camp often holds people during wartime for security reasons, sometimes without trial, but conditions may be less severe than in a concentration camp.
Word family
- concentrate verb
- To bring together in one place; the camps concentrated large numbers of people.
- concentration noun
- The act of gathering many people or things in one place.
Commonly confused: concentration camp or prisoner-of-war camp? concentration camp or refugee camp?
concentration camp vs prisoner-of-war camp
A prisoner-of-war camp holds captured enemy soldiers, while a concentration camp holds civilians or others without trial.
concentration camp vs refugee camp
A refugee camp provides temporary shelter for people fleeing danger, not imprisonment.
Practice
The Nazi regime sent millions of people to ___ during World War II.
Choose one answer.
'Concentration camps' is correct because it refers to places where people were imprisoned without trial under the Nazi regime. 'Refugee camps' are for people fleeing danger, 'summer camps' are for recreation, and 'training camps' are for sports or military practice.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “concentration camp”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.