zlacker

Note that there is a distinction — albeit a blurry one — between concentration camps [0] and extermination camps [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internment

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp

>>jakela+(OP)
In the U.S. context, concentration camp is used almost exclusively to refer to the extermination camps run by Nazis in World War II. I know not everyone on here is American, but that bit of information is useful for understanding why so many people make the association between concentration camps and the extermination of Jews in WWII. And it also explains why it is disingenuous of Americans to state that the US government is running concentration camps; it is technically correct according to the dictionary definition, but it is not correct according to lay usage in the United States.

>>toaste+HP
That's a very roundabout way to say "Americans have a comfortably whitewashed, frankly ignorant version of reality and everybody else should walk on eggshells to help them maintain it".

Concentration camps were not solely the purview of the Nazis, and already had quite the history before they even came on the scene. In fact, while we're on the topic of World War II, the US government held people of Japanese decent in concentration camps during that war - which perhaps partly explains there's such an aggressive effort to make those camps a "Nazi thing".

The rest of the world doesn't have any obligation to help you hide from facing and interrogating your own history.

>>filled+VU
FWIW, I think you're being needlessly antagonistic. I'm trying to help the misunderstanding between Europeans and Americans on this issue (and leveling criticism against people using the term in a certain way in the American context—ICE is an American government agency, after all). Different cultures use words to mean different things. And I can tell you that, in the American context, concentration camp = Nazis killing Jews and internment camp = Americans putting Japanese Americans in camps. However you think it should be, that's the way things are on the ground here.

As a result, calling whatever ICE is doing "concentration camps" doesn't make sense in the American context, unless maybe you're an academic or specialist speaking to there academics or specialists. And it's actually worse than "doesn't make sense in the American context", since it makes people who are only familiar with the American understanding of the term think that you are a deranged ideologue. And that's bad for discourse and finding a shared understanding, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

>>toaste+5Y
But does the phrase internment camp actually bring to mind abuses such as denying children hygiene supplies such as toothbrushes or basic necessities like blankets in an American reader? The separation of families? The disappearance of children?

If internment camp does not convey that then I think using a technically correct term such as concentration camp to ensure that people pay attention to these abuses is not just technically correct it actually conveys that this is more than "just" an internment camp.

If Americans do generally associate internment camp with that then fair enough call them internment camps in general conversation.

>>toaste+5Y
And I'm trying to explain to you that it's not a "misunderstanding" - the US is hardly unique in using euphemisms and indirect language to downplay/distance itself from its actions. The "internment camps" Japanese Americans were held in were concentration camps, and frankly it's absurd to expect anybody else to pander to one's euphemisms for human rights abuses - the right thing to do is to consistently call it out no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, "American context" be damned. After all, we don't (for example) have much concern for the "Turkish context" when talking about the Armenian genocide either.

>>filled+b81
FWIW, I am not arguing for using the term “internment camp”. But the term “concentration camp” to describe whatever is happening at ICE detention centers doesn’t make sense. People are not being starved or worked to death, they are not being gassed, and they are not being put into ovens. And those things are what “concentration camp” means in America.

>>greyco+j31
I’m not arguing for the use of the term “internment camp”. I am arguing against the use of the term “concentration camp”.