The concentration camp will forever be associated with Nazi Germany and quite rightly so, but wasn’t it a British invention during the Boor war ?
As far as I know, that is true. It was used to “concentrate” potentially hostile country-dwellers or the supporters of “insurgents” in camps where they could be controlled and where they’d be away from gurellias they’d otherwise lend aid to. Conditions in the hastily-assembled camps were not good, and the British guarding them thought of the occupants as “the enemy”, so you can imagine the rest.
That largely depends on how precisely you want to define the word ‘invention’. The idea of imprisoning large numbers of people for political reasons during a war was hardly novel. What the Boer War did was to popularise the particular description ‘concentration camp’. This was adopted by the Nazis because it seemed innocuous or, at the very least, something which had a precedent. The argument that they were no different from the ones the British had used was a convenient excuse. The point however was the extermination camps were different, very, very different.
You could always try this site for a brief history. Not a nice place, but then again neither were the ones erected erected in the USA to incarcerate their own citizens (Japanese in WWII or Indian reservations, your choice)
<< This was adopted by the Nazis because it seemed innocuous or, at the very least, something which had a precedent. The argument that they were no different from the ones the British had used was a convenient excuse. The point however was the extermination camps were different, very, very different. >>
Which is why the terminology has changed. Although the Nazi camps were called “concentration camps” at the time and for a few decades after the war, they are now called “extermination camps” or “death camps” to be distinguished from other camps with concentrations of displaced persons.
Precisely.
Although there is no doubts that the “Extermination Camps” of Nazi Germany were far different and a lot worse it is fair to say that the British (and many other nations)are guilty of their own versions of humanitarian crimes and dare I say it Ethnic cleansing.
But the Victors do write the History.
I’m in no way condoning what was done in Nazi Germany, just saying that they were not the first or the last.
It is true that the British came up with concentration camp in the Boer War well before the Germans, but I believe that they were beaten to the invention by General Weyler in Cuba, circa 1897.
Yes, Danimal appears to be correct. The Britannica article on concentration camps discusses their use by the British in the South African War or Boer War (1899-1902) without mentioning Weyler; and their article on Weyler only says that he “used stern antirebel measures” and “harsh and energetic policies”. However, the Columbia Encyclopedia’s article on the Spanish-American War “credits” Welyer with introduction of the reconcentrado in 1896, so it looks like he beat the British to the concept (or at least the terminology; I don’t know that either the Spanish in Cuba or the British in South Africa were the inventors of rounding up potential enemies and locking them up some place) by several years.
Yeah, those Dutch settlers sure were obnoxious, weren’t they?
When I first heard the term “concentration camp” I pictured a bunch of people sitting aroung tents thinking really hard.
Just another note on the terminology of the Nazi camps –
The terms “concentration camp” and “death camp” or “extermination camp” can refer to different things. While “concentration camp” (Konzentrations- or KZ- lager) is used as a general term for the camps, “extermination camp” (Vernichtungslager) refers specifically to those camps which were set up for mass murder and represent the uniquely horrifying aspect of the Nazi system. These camps were all located outside of pre-war Germany, in present-day Poland, and include Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The earlier concentration camps (beginning with Dachau in 1933) were more comparable to camps found in other countries. These were set up to imprison political prisoners and undesirable groups of people. There were also work camps, re-education camps, and ghettos set up. Later on, as the death camps became overloaded and transportation became difficult, some of these camps began to install gas chambers of their own.
Here is a website (in German) of an ongoing research project with a tremendous amount of detail on the individual camps. While the javascript is not perfect, you can bring up maps (click on a blue heading here to bring up a map, then click to get more detail) and get detailed information for almost every location.
That brings up something that confused me recently. I have read somewhere that while Germany had dozens of concentration camps (Konzentrationslagern), there were only six extermination camps (Vernichtungslagern). These six, as I recall, were Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Chelmno, and Belzec. I have never seen Dachau referred to as a Vernichtungslager, even though I am pretty sure that Dachau, like the othere six camps mentioned above, had gas chambers and crematoria for systematic mass murder. Why is Dachau not classified as an extermination camp?
Dachau was one of the earliest concentration camps. It was, generally, a labor camp. (The gates were inscribed Arbeit Macht Frei, loosely translated “Work makes one free.”)
While a great many atrocities and murders were carried out at Dachau, its purpose was never the extermination of Jews. (Actually, I remember seeing crematoria, there, but not gas houses, but my memory could be faulty.)
When the Nazis shipped in a couple thousand Russian POWs and murdered them, it was a single incident and Dachau was simply a convenient place to hold the Russians and to dispose of the bodies. There was never any planned effort to ship trainloads of Jews or other under-men to Dachau on a regular basis to be eliminated. The Nazis did not consider Dachau to be an extermination camp, so it is generally not included in that list.
I certainly agree that the manner in which the British incarcerated Boers at the turn of the century fits the general description of what we now term ‘concentration camps’ but I’d be surprised if that was the first occasion such a thing happened.
Just as an example, I recall reading that the number of Confederate prisoners who died while ‘imprisoned’ in the post civil war period slightly exceeded the number of US soldiers who died in Vietnam (the latter, I believe, being in the region of 56,000). Calling something one thing doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t also something else.
I remember reading that original Nazi concentration camps were called that because they were a concentration of (slave) labor. Sorry I can’t remember the Cite.
tomndebb has the basic answers as to why camps like Dachau are not termed an extermination camp. These camps were originally set up like camps in other countries – to remove certain people from society. The extermination camps were set up as efficient slaughterhouses.
Yes, they did have gas chambers and crematoria, but the gas chambers at Dachau were never operational, if I remember correctly. They were built toward the end of the war as transportation to the extermination camps became difficult. Dachau has a fairly extensive memorial, and if you visit you can walk through the gas chambers even (they are located a little outside of the camp walls, at the far end from the main prisoners’ gate).
Simply being in one of these camps did not mean that death was less common. Many of the prisoners at these camps were sent to extermination camps or died due to horrible camp conditions (I believe that at Dachau only 1/3 survived). In addition to the extermination camps, there were also mass-shootings that occurred in many locations, and euthanasia centers at which thousands of disabled and terminally ill persons were killed.
Maybe not so much towards the English, but suffice it to say the Voortrekkers aren’t the group I’m proudest of when my nations history is concerned. If you’re ever in South Africa, visit the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria (incidently named after Pretorius, one of the Voortrekker leaders responsible for the disgraceful battle of Blood River).
I found it a very humbling, yet revolting experience. Sheer revisionism by the White Majority, as late as 1938. Actually, it still is a major attraction to Terreblanche and his fascist troup.
OK, that was a bit of a hijack, I suppose Sorry about that, but I felt this needed to be addressed.