What is the difference between concentration camps and labor camps?

Answer 1

Concentration camps and labor camps are both types of detention facilities, but they serve different purposes. Concentration camps are primarily used for the internment of specific groups of people based on their ethnicity, religion, or political beliefs, with the goal of persecution and extermination. Labor camps, on the other hand, are intended for forced labor and often used for economic exploitation, with detainees being forced to work under harsh conditions for the benefit of the detaining authority. While both types of camps involve human rights abuses, the key distinction lies in their primary objectives: persecution in concentration camps and forced labor in labor camps.

Answer 2

A labor camp was basically a sort of special prison where inmates were forced to do hard labor.

"Concentration camp" is the larger umbrella term for all Nazi-run camps (the term actually predates Nazism). Subtypes of concentration camps include labor camps, transit camps (where inmates are collected and transferred elsewhere), prisoner of war camps (where captured enemy soldiers were kept) and extermination or death camps (where inmates were simply killed).

Answer 3

Most concentration camps were harsh forced labour and punishment camps, where prisoners were ill treated and inadequately fed. At some camps - the very harshest - prisoners were systematically worked to death. The extermination camps had a different purpose - to kill most new arrivals (usually by gassing) as soon as possible. Please see the related question.

Answer 4

Nazi concentration camps were run by the SS. There were also some labour camps run by other organizations, for example, by the German civilian authorities in some of the occupied countries.

Answer 5

Concentration camps were places German Nazis sent Jewish people to be tortured and exterminated. The Holocaust was the name given to the process of Jewish extermination by the Germans.