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Internment is the imprisonment or confinement[1] of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. Collins English dictionary defines internment as "the act of interning or state of being interned, esp of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects".[2] Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventative confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities.[3]

Interned persons may be held at prisons or at facilities known as internment camps. In certain contexts, these may be known, either officially or pejoratively, as concentration camps.





Early civilizations such as Assyria used forced resettlement of populations as a means of controlling territory,[6] but it was not until much later in the late 19th and 20th centuries that records exist of groups of civilian non-combatants being concentrated into large prison camps.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term "Concentration camp" as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group the government has identified as suspect."[7]

The Polish historian Władysław Konopczyński has suggested that concentration camps originated in Poland during the Bar Confederation rebellion (1768–1772), when the Russian Empire established three camps for Polish rebel captives awaiting deportation to Siberia.[8]


The term "concentration camp" saw wider use during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), when the British operated such camps in South Africa for interning Boers.[9][10] They built a total of 45 tented camps for Boer internees and 64 for black Africans. Of the 28,000 Boer men captured as prisoners of war, the British sent 25,630 overseas. The vast majority of Boers remaining in the local camps were women and children,[citation needed] over 26,000 of whom died there. During the 20th century, the arbitrary internment of civilians by the state reached a climax with Nazi concentration camps (1933–1945). As a result, the term "concentration camp" today carries many of the connotations of "extermination camp" (or "death camp").

See also[edit]


  1. ^ per Oxford Universal Dictionary, 1st edition 1933.
  3. ^ Euphemisms, Concentration Camps And The Japanese Internment
  6. ^ "Laws of Hammurabi". Retrieved 1 February 2013. 
  7. ^ "Concentration camp". American Heritage Dictionary. Retrieved 22 July 2014. 
  10. ^ "Documents re camps in Boer War". 

External links[edit]

Media related to Internment at Wikimedia Commons