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'''Concentration camp'''s were camps the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Nazi Germany]] set up for persons deemed to be opponents or threats to the regime.  

A '''concentration camp''' is a guarded compound where political prisoners are detained. The term orginated during the [[Boer War]],<ref>1900–05, applied orig. to camps where noncombatants were placed. [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/concentration%20camp]</ref> but has become synonymous with the death camps of [[Nazi Germany]] and, to a lesser extent, the [[gulag]]s of the [[Soviet Union]].  

The most infamous camps were the camps set up by [[Hitler]], such as [[Auschwitz]]. During [[World War II]] [[Jew]]s were either killed right away or worked until their death. [[Christian]]s, [[gypsy|Gypsies]], [[Slavs]], [[homosexuals]], [[Communism|communists]], and anyone else that Hitler hated were also treated similarly. News reporting on the Nazi death camps was sparse until allied soldiers liberated them towards the end of [[World War II]].

[[Auschwitz]], for example, achieved [[murder]] on an industrial scale. During [[World War II]], 1.5 million people were systematically starved, [[torture]]d and murdered there.<ref>http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/31</ref> Although [[Hitler]] was primarily focused on the extermination of the [[Jews]], [[Christian]]s, [[Gypsy|gypsies]], [[Slavs]], [[homosexuals]], and [[Communism|communists]] also met with similar fates in the Nazi camps.

 

The Soviet gulags were forced labour camps, mainly in the remote regions of [[Siberia]] and the Far North. By 1934, the gulags held several million inmates (political prisoners and ordinary criminals alike) and the Soviet economy benefited considerably from this vast pool of [[slave]] labour. Conditions were brutal: prisoners received insufficient food and clothing to cope with the long working hours and severe weather, resulting in high death rates from exhaustion and disease. <ref>http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/gula.html</ref>

 

[[Category:History]]

[[Category:History]]