Concentration Camps

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 11th grade September 2001

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Concentration Camps Definition: A concentration camp is a place where selected groups of people are imprisoned. There is a saying by a Russian writer about a prisoner going into a concentration camp. "The official asked the prisoner: "How long are you here for?" Prisoner "25 years." Official: "What did you do?" Prisoner: "Nothing" Official: "That's a lie, for nothing, you get ten years." (Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia)" The people who are kept in these concentration camps are not kept in there because they were lawfully convicted of some criminal crimes. Most of the time they are usually imprisoned just for being a specific ethnic or religious groups. Another big reason for being put in a concentration camp is speaking out against the government or being a political refugee. Governments would put political refugees and other people in these camps to protect state security, exploitation, or punishment for only accused crimes. The prisoners were confined without having a normal trial and for undetermined periods of time.

Civilians are usually put into these camps during wartime to prevent them from helping the enemy, attacking in the form of guerilla warfare, or just terrorizing everybody else into submission.

When people go into these camps they are treated very badly. Some of the prisoners were subjected to nauseating medical experiments. They received very small rations of food and they are very over worked. In times during war, the prisoners would be forced to make guns and ammunition for the soldiers. Most of the people in these camps either died from being over worked, from starvation, or they would get sick and die from diseases. They would get sick from living in very unsanitary conditions like having to go the bathroom in a corner of a small room, not having any place to wash up, living...