OPINION — The phrase “concentration camp” is freighted with dark historical meaning. Most people hear it and instinctively think of concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews and other minority populations during the Holocaust.
But the use and name of concentration camps originated far earlier. In the late 1800s, Spanish military officials used concentration camps — reconcentrados — during their 1896-97 Cuban campaign to isolate civilians from rebels, resulting in widespread death and disease.
We are scholars whose research into international relations and conflict includes studying historical and modern uses of these systems of camps as a form of repression.
