Talk:Concentration camp

discussion for concentration camp

POV

Since there was no discussion when the tag was added, I decided to start one. Any thoughts wether the article is neutral? I'll remove the tag in a week if no-one contributes. thanks Chosongul 18:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

The article should be about concentration camps in general, with specific camps touched upon in a history section, with links to articles about each camp for which an article exists. I really only wanted to find out the origin of the term "concentration camp". At least I try (talk) 12:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Guantanamo Bay

I'm not sure about calling Guantanamo Bay a concentration camp. Technically they're prisoners of war aren't they? Archer7 - talk 17:24, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

no, technically not because some are british and french. America just plays this down Chosongul 20:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Guantanamo Bay is NOT a concentration camp. This article should be about internment in general. PullToOpen ^Talk 20:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

A concentration camp is a camp for prisoners who oppose a certain government, a POW camp is a camp for enemy soldiers taken prisoner, this means that Guantanamo is by definition a concentration camp Chosongul 10:11, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem with those held at the Guantanamo bay facilities is that they are not Prisoners of War, as of the Geneva convention, but Illegal Combatants. And yes, a concentration camp has nothing to do with this; as it holds only people opposing a certain government. -- Eptalon 10:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

If you look at the en:internment page, there isn't a single mentioning of Guantanamo Bay. Also, there has been discussion of Guantanamo Bay's status (or lack of status) as a concentration camp on the talk page of en:List of concentration and internment camps. It is not on the list, after being discussed on the talk page (en:Talk:List of concentration and internment camps#Guantanamo Bay). I'm certainly not saying that English Wikipedia is perfect, but I think that since it has been discussed in greater detail there and is still omitted, that perhaps we should follow their lead. At the very least, while it is under discussion, I think the picture on this page should show a confirmed consensus of what a concentration camp is--and not a picture of Guantanamo Bay, which may or may not be a concentration camp. For what it's worth, after researching the definition in some detail over at English Wikipedia, I don't believe it qualifies. In fact, the name of the Guantanamo Bay page is Guantanamo Bay detainment camp. Tygartl1 03:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

English is American run, there is very little pro-muslim/socialist content, all right wing. --Chosongul 13:02, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I've always found it to be pretty well balanced, there are many muslim/socialist editors ready to cut down on POV. Note that 'pro-muslim/socialist' is POV, and that isn't allowed. All articles must be neutral, although people of opposing views can sometimes spot it better. They can't add their own POV, however. Archer7 - talk 13:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we can follow them and say that Guantanamo is not a concentration camp. Let's remove all mentions of that phrase. Archer7 - talk 13:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

On the English Wikipedia, concentration camp redirects to internment camp. Since Guantanamo Bay prison contains people who are interned without trial, it's certainly that. Clearly this is not on the scale of some infamous concentration camps of the past. However the idea of locking up a group of suspects to keep them out of the way is what "concentration" means. I think it's a interesting current news item to illustrate what an internment camp is. Sue W 15:39, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I would argue that a concentration camp gathers up a group of people simply because they have a certain characteristic (e.g. they are Jewish, homosexual, Japanese, Muslim). While it is true that the majority of detainees in Guantanamo Bay are Muslim, they were not gathered simply because they are Muslim. To put it another way, the United States is not gathering up/concentrating all Muslims simply based on their faith. In the same way that a death camp is a specific type of concentration camp, a concentration camp is a specific type of internment camp/detainment camp. The terms are not interchangeable. Keeping that in mind, Guantanamo Bay is an interment camp/detainment camp, but is not a concentration camp.

While I am on the topic of discussing the terminology, I think that this page should perhaps be changed to "internment", as it is on English Wikipedia. Internment camps and concentration camps can redirect here. If there are no objections, I will probabaly do that in a few days. Tygartl1 16:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

There are various problems here: First of all, the term concentration camp has a very negative wikt:connotation, esp. since the end of the second World War. The problem with the facilities at Guantanamo Bay is that despite the fact that there are international conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners in armed conflicts (namely, the Geneva Conventions), those held at the facilities are denied some or all of those rights. This is done by claiming that the GVA conventions do not apply to those held (because they were supposedly not part of an official state-run army). Once the difference between a concentration camp, an internment camp, and a prison facility have been made clear, can the respective cleanup be done. As part of that cleanup, a difference will probably need to be made between the geographical location Guantanamo bay, and the US-run facilities there. --Eptalon 21:46, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The people who are locked away in such a prison, are not usually yet found guilty of a crime, but may be politically against the leaders of a region, that's the reason for Guantanamo is it not?? --Chosongul 15:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I support changing this page to internment camp and having the various other definitions redirect to it. Perhaps we can have a preamble about why states use these institutions including: detainment, prison, forced labour, concentration and internment camps. Also point out that they are usually illegal or at least only legal under some kind of "emergency powers" because the state perceives a threat. And the provoking of such "emergency powers" is one of the objectives of terrorism (cf. Mao, Guevara et al.) At the same time, I'd like to ask whoever took out all references to the Guantanamo Bay camp to at least put back a link to it, since it is an internment camp.

Simplification.

The final paragraph starts out the a 72 word run on sentence from hell. POV issues aside, that needs to be cleaned up and simplified badly. Also tagged the other 2 sentences in that paragraph as {fact} for comparison of function of Soviet and US camps and confirmed Suicide attempts. -- Creol 12:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

American Civil War Prison Camps

There are several factual errors and omissions in this paragraph. First, prison camps should be referred to by their official names and nicknames should only be added later. "40 Acres of Hell" was Camp Douglas and it was 80 acres, not 40.

Second, Andersonville was a late war prison. Federal prisons almost all predated Andersonville, including Camps Chase and Douglas, which have been listed here. In fact, some of the guards at Andersonville were former Camp Douglas prisoners. Federal acts of torture, executions, and the intentional denial of food, clothing, shelter, and blankets, as well as the intentional distributing of rancid or spoiled foodstuffs - done for the purpose of inflicting suffering and death of Confederate prisoners - were well established years before Andersonville ever existed.

Third, the commandant of Andersonville, Henry Wirz, was tried and executed for war crimes, but this trial was a show trial, claims of torture and other brutality were widely overstated, (at least one key witness was bribed into testifying with a government job and later disappeared when it was revealed that he had never even been at Andersonville) and facts regarding his pleading with the Confederate Government for more resources to better the camp's conditions were ignored. His lawyer initially quit in protest of the trial's unfairness, but returned when Wirz begged for him to stay, as he was the only slim chance he had to avoid being killed in this witch hunt.

Fourth, it should also be noted that Confederate guards at Andersonville suffered from the same supply shortages that the prisoners did, something that never occurred in a Federal prison, as supply shortages there were a matter of policy, not availability. Guards commonly wore Federal uniforms or civilian clothes because of a lack of available Confederate uniforms. Additionally, this lack of proper clothing, shelter, and medical supplies resulted in 226 of around 1,200 guards dying during the camp's operation - a mortality rate of 19%, which is comparable to the accepted 17.5% mortality rate of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, a Grade I camp. The prisoner mortality rate at Andersonville was 29%, which was closer to the 24% mortality rate of Buchenwald, a Grade II camp.

On the Federal side, mortality rates are sometimes contested because the Federal Government regularly refused/refuses to recognize large numbers of confirmed fatalities. This is made worse by significant numbers of prisoners who simply "disappeared" without being listed as dead, released, or escaped. At Camp Douglas, for example, the official government body count is around 4,200 because that's how many dead we have positively ID'd and named. However, additional research has confirmed another 1,800 unnamed dead and 1,500 other prisoners who "disappeared". So, depending on how you interpret that data, around 6,000 or 7,500 prisoners died, a mortality rate of 23% or 28%. At Camp Chase, there seems to be some dispute as to how many prisoners were incarcerated there, not how many died. Some sources say 16,000 and others say 25,000, resulting in a mortality rate of 9% or 14%.

Other Federal prisons include Point Lookout, where the Federal Government only recognized 3,384 deaths, but additional research has uncovered over 11,000 additional fatalities, for a total of more than 14,000 and a mortality rate of 28%, virtually the same as Andersonville. Uncertainty regarding the total number of deaths at Alton Prison (1,500 - 2,200) give us a mortality rate range of 12.5% - 18 1/3%. Fortunately, most other camps seem to have no dispute as to population or deaths. Camp Elmira had a mortality rate of 25%, Rock Island Prison's rate was 16% Fort Delaware was 8%, and Johnson Island was only 1 1/3%.

Based on the Nazi concentration camp mortality rate examples above, Andersonville, Andersonville's guards, Camp Douglas, Camp Chase, Camp Elmira, Point Lookout, Alton Prison, and Rock Island Prison all were comparable to Grade I and II concentration camps. --ETBailey 18:51, 26 September, 2012 (UTC)

Soviet Union during WWII

Posting this in case the person whose edits I just changed would like to discuss this to avoid an edit war. (1) Changing "Soviet invasion of Poland" to "liberation of Poland" seems strange given that the sentence ends by saying 1.5 million Poles were deported at gunpoint. English Wikipedia says "the Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation" that resulted in a Soviet campaign of ethnic cleansing. In that context it seems like "liberation" is non-neutral. (2) Re: characterizing camps in Siberia as concentration camps, people were forced to live there by the Soviet government, they were not able to leave, they had no choice but to go. That seems to fit the definition of "concentration camp." Welcoming your feedback. Fuhvah (talk) 00:02, 6 March 2016 (UTC)