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| − | '''Concentration camp'''s are camps set up for persons deemed to be opponents or threats to a regime. They were most notoriously used by [[Nazi Germany]], as well as in the [[Soviet Union|Soviet Russia]], and Dutch controlled [[South Africa]]. The term concentration camp was coined by Soviet Communist Party General Secreary [[Vladimir Lenin]] in a letter of 9 August 1918 in which he state, | + | '''Concentration camps''' are camps set up for persons deemed to be opponents or threats to a regime. They were most notoriously used by [[Nazi Germany]], in the [[Soviet Union|Soviet Russia]], and Dutch controlled [[South Africa]]. The term "concentration camp" was coined by Soviet Communist Party General Secreary [[Vladimir Lenin]] in a 9 August 1918 letter in which he stated, |
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| | {{Cquote|It is essential to organise a reinforced guard of reliable persons to carry out mass terror against [[kulaks]], priests and White Guardists; unreliable elements should be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town" <ref>Geoffrey Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, 1992, p. 71. </ref>}} | | {{Cquote|It is essential to organise a reinforced guard of reliable persons to carry out mass terror against [[kulaks]], priests and White Guardists; unreliable elements should be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town" <ref>Geoffrey Hosking, A History of the Soviet Union, 1992, p. 71. </ref>}} |
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| − | The [[Soviet Union]] created the world's first concentration camp system with a | + | The [[Soviet Union]] created the world's first concentration camp system with a network of prisons and labor camps. <ref>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary'', Translation by Harold Shukman, The Free PRess, New York, 1996.</ref> Adolf Hitler, in responding to a question from a German industrial as to how he planned to deal with unemployment prior to assuming power in [[Nazi Germany]], responded, "Concentration camps". <ref>Gunther, John, ''Inside Europe'', New York: Harper, 1939.</ref> The Soviet [[Gulag]] system was copied in Nazi Germany and raised to profound horrors never before thought imaginable: death factories. |
| − | network of prisons and labor camps. <ref>Dmitri Volkogonov, ''Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary'', Translation by Harold Shukman, The Free PRess, New York, 1996.</ref> Adolf Hitler, in responding to a question from a German industrial as to how he planned to deal with unemployment prior to assuming power in [[Nazi Germany]], responded "concentration camps". <ref>Gunther, John, ''Inside Europe'', New York: Harper, 1939.</ref> The Soviet [[Gulag]] system was copied in Nazi Germany, and raised to profound horrors never before thought imaginable: death factories. | + | [[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. |
| − | [[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. | |
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| | 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 was dependent upon this vast pool of [[slave]] labour from the [[lumpen masses]] and [[counterrevolutionaries]]. An April 14, 1941 Memorandum from the U.S. Military Attache (G-2) in Moscow, found in the [[Harry Hopkins]] Papers at the FDR Library, entitled "[[NKVD]] of the USSR", it states in part, | | 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 was dependent upon this vast pool of [[slave]] labour from the [[lumpen masses]] and [[counterrevolutionaries]]. An April 14, 1941 Memorandum from the U.S. Military Attache (G-2) in Moscow, found in the [[Harry Hopkins]] Papers at the FDR Library, entitled "[[NKVD]] of the USSR", it states in part, |