> Interment [euphemism for] concentration camp "Concentration camp" is a euphemism when you're actually talking about death/extermination camps. The differenc

> Interment [euphemism for] concentration camp "Concentration camp" is a euphemism when you're actually talking about death/extermination camps. The difference between an "internment camp" and a "concentration camp" isn't entirely clear to me, but the terms were originally meant to mean what they say at face value: camps where people are concentrated or interned. The interment camps for Japanese Americans were concentration camps in the literal face-value meaning of the at term. They took a group of people that was spread out over the whole west coast and concentrated them down into a few small camps. A camp that is purpose built to exterminate people, not merely concentrate them, should be called an extermination camp. In casual conversation extermination camps are often called 'concentration camps', but that is clearly euphemistic. (This is somewhat complicated by the fact that many nazi extermination camps were also concentration camps. "Auschwitz" was a cluster of several camps, some of them extermination camps, some of them concentration camps. Treblinka on the other hand was an extermination camp but not also a concentration camp.)