Talk:Internment

Concentration Camp should not be a redirect page

The page for concentration camp should be at least a discussion of the term itself. There was presumably some discussion about the change, which I don't know how to find. Regardless, it should be reconsidered. Mackerm (talk) 19:10, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

A concentration camp and an internment camp are too different concepts. A concentration camp is the combination between an extermination camp and a labour camp while an internment camp on the other hand is a detention center where enemy aliens or citizens deemed as security risk are arrested and confined. I don't think it should be a redirect page. 95.151.194.20 (talk) 20:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

This essay by Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga presents a very strong argument for using concentration camp over internment camp. Concentration camp is the term used repeatedly as early as the 1860s (Ten Years War between Cubans and Spain) to describe locations to which civilians are forcibly relocated. That the term is now most strongly associated with Nazi concentration camps does not justify applying a neutralizing and self-justifying euphemism like internment camp. Catercorn (talk) 18:09, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

What about Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian internment of Serbs during the First World War? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.27.22 (talk) 21:45, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 10 June 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (non-admin closure) Safari Scribe^{Edits! Talk!} 14:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

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Internment → Concentration camp – This page has a euphemistic and policy-violating title. I arrived here after being redirected from "concentration camp", and that should be the title for a number of very clear reasons. First, internment" is not a synonym for "concentration camp"; that would be "internment camp", so we do not even have the full euphemism here, but an incomplete euphemism: "internment" alone is in not a synonym for "concentration camp"; just a term for the condition of being interred, anywhere. As a standalone word, this cannot title a page about camps; it would only be appropriate for a broad concept article about the conditions of being interred, but that would overlap with imprisonment ... so "internment" has no place here, per WP:NOTDICTIONARY. Next, onto the fundamental issue of euphemism. This is readily demonstrated in sources. Concentration camps have had a great many different euphemisms attached to them throughout history, none of them tolerable or encyclopedic. It is worth noting that Wikipedia has lapsed relative to Britannica, which has not erred or minced its words. The presence of Britannica relative to the absence of Wikipedia on this topic is immediately noticeable upon a browser search. Meanwhile, in source such as this, "internment camps" and "internment" are terms that are specifically singled out as forming part of a system of euphemistic terms used in place of "concentration camps", with others being "assembly center" and "relocation center". MOS:EUPHEMISM must be applied, and this disreputable stain on the project addressed. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:53, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• I would think that these would be two separate articles — that is, that we would have a general article on the concept of internment, and a more specific article on the history of concentration camps. BD2412 T 19:52, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

  Interment could potentially be its own broad concept article with enough teasing apart from the overlaps with imprisonment in general on the one hand and euphemisms for concentration camps on the other. However, this page is principally about explicit concentration camps with just a strange first paragraph largely at odds with the rest of the material. Given that the material is principally associated with the move target, the page should move, and then the internment redirect can be turned into a page if desired. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:14, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose you don't need a concentration camp for internment. Existing imprisonment facilities can be used without concentration of the internees. -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 05:24, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  The opening statement outlines that "internment" is a broad concept and could have a broad concept article, but this page is currently not it. This is a page about concentration camps with a one paragraph definition of "internment" strapped to the front. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:01, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  You should have proposed to split the article instead. Internment still should exist as an article. Indeed being interred does not necessarily need imprisonment, as interred officers who have given their parole have traditionally been free to roam in society within a limited region (such as a city), like a criminal parolee, so "internment" is not the same as "imprisonment". Interned warships would be locked down by the host country during the time of war, with the sailors available to roam the docks. -- 64.229.90.32 (talk) 21:29, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Clearly you don't need a concentration camp to intern someone. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Necrothesp: That's not the point. Here, the material that is being discussed is 90% about either explicit concentration camps or the type of "internment camp" where the "internment" is a euphemism for it being a concentration camp. Now I can happily simply move that 90% of the material away from this page to the redirect leaving just the dictionary definition stub here, but renaming the appropriate page with the relevant page history is the better approach. I thought I'd laid this out quite clearly, but perhaps not. I assume you at least agree that these two terms are separate topics? Iskandar323 (talk) 12:53, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Of course it's the point. This is a generic article on internment. As to being a euphemism, that is purely a POV, is it not? If a camp is not commonly referred to as a concentration camp then we shouldn't use the term to refer to it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:00, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  No, this is clearly an article on concentration camps with a thin veneer of material about internment, and I just wanted to preserve the page history, but I can also just start afresh. As for the euphemisms element, we avoid euphemisms by default, so if we have two POVs, one euphemistic and one not, we call the spade a spade, with prejudice – unless the euphemism is an overwhelming common name, in which case the euphemism would be explained on page. I provided sources illustrating the euphemism issue here, and there are plenty more out there. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:16, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  You have just illustrated the whole POV argument. That is your reading of it, but it is not mine. Which is why need to stick solely to reliable sources and not get into discussions on what is and what is not a euphemism, because that is eminently POV. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  I did provide RS stating the euphemism issue in the context, so no, it's not my reading; it's the reading of reliable sources. If RS describe something as a euphemism, it is not POV to treat it as such. That is the opposite of pushing a POV; it's being guided away from POV by the RS. It is also a style guide issue, because MOS:EUPHEMISM is a well-established part of the guidelines. But clearly there is little engagement to be had here. You don't even seem to want to admit that there are two topics here and that something needs to be done to resolve the content clash. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  Because some sources claim it is a euphemism does not mean all (or even most) do. Cherrypicking sources to fit one's own POV is never a good idea. Yes, I do accept there are two topics here. That's the whole point! It is you who wants to rename the article. An article on internment in general and an article on concentration (or internment) camps is fine. But that's not what you're proposing by trying to get this article renamed and claiming it has a euphemistic and policy-violating title. Take a look at the list of camps on this page; most of them do not have "concentration camp" in the title because that's not what they're known as. That's all that I'm saying. In general, only the Nazi camps are actually known as concentration camps. It's therefore not a euphemism to use other titles for other camps. What you're essentially doing is taking a term generally used only of one type of camp run by one country in one era and saying that using any other term for camps run by other countries in other eras is a euphemism. That's just not true. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

  The example I specially provided in the opening statement is in of itself about another example, which is Japanese American concentration camps, which is very much what scholarly sources call these. The Britannica entry I cited meanwhile points to further examples in the South African war and Soviet Union, so examples galore really. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:34, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

you're correct. i asked for concentration camp, not for internment 88.233.99.246 (talk) 13:25, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - I don't buy that the term "internment" overlaps meaningfully with the subject of imprisonment. The article for imprisonment a.k.a "incarceration" falls under the subject of criminal procedure. In contrast, the first paragraph of internment states that the term refers to "imprisonment of people... without charges or intent to file charges... Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime." The specific term for imprisoning people without charges, in large groups, seems distinct enough from the criminal procedure of imprisonment, especially given that this article is more so about the debate surrounding the debate between "internment" and "concentration camp."

I also don't buy that "internment" is a euphemism, or that MOS:EUPHEMISM is most applicable here. "Internment" is the precise and technical term for the phenomenon of internment camps and concentration camps (one doesn't refer to it as "concentration"), so it is not a roundabout or minimizing way of referring to the topic. This is not equivalent to calling sex "making love," which is definitely euphemistic and minimizing. I think the more applicable policy here is WP:NPOVTITLE.

What I find most concerning about renaming internment to concentration camp is that it would be violating that exact policy, WP:NPOVNAME. The term "concentration camp" is now most widely associated with Nazi concentration camps. If one searches "concentration camp" in Google, the definition given states, "The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe in 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz." While Google is not a perfect standard for this, it does show what the ordinary meaning of "concentration camp" is. Additionally, this article contains a list of "internment and concentration camps," and by renaming to "concentration camp" would be giving a Wikipedia POV that some of these camps are "concentration camps," conflating them with Nazi concentration camps, when that is not necessarily the case. This seems especially important given that the list is (intentionally?) ambiguous as to whether a certain place counts as a "concentration camp" or "internment camp." For example, it would seem to me to express a strong POV—which the vast majority of people disagree with—to list the US's migrant detention centers under an article titled concentration camp, rather than saying that concentration camps are where internment may occur, as the article currently does. This debate has been constantly ongoing since this page was originally moved from Concentration camp back in 2008-ish (iirc), and I think it would be wise to continue to err on the side of caution and look to WP:NPOVTITLE and precedent, and use the more neutral term of "internment." Lengua (talk) 00:38, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose, per the above. The two are different concepts. - SchroCat (talk) 10:47, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose I believe that there are many euphamisms for concentration camp such as even "detention camp" and things like that and we want to be careful. However this does not negate the concept of internment being a real and distinct phenomonon. Jorahm (talk) 18:21, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

European Union Refugee Camps

Is there a reason, why refugee camps (like Moria https://en.m.wiki.x.io/wiki/Moria_refugee_camp) are not included here? 2003:ED:5F47:7246:142F:DE9F:7CF:B2E8 (talk) 12:05, 21 September 2024 (UTC)