Internment VS Concentration Camps

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Fyyr
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Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Fyyr »

Mr. Tudamorf says they are the same.

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Manzanar Internment camp, Ansel Adams photographer

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Are they the same to you?

Or are they different?
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Tudamorf
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Tudamorf »

Double post.
Last edited by Tudamorf on Thu Sep 22, 2011 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:Mr. Tudamorf says they are the same.
I said nothing of the sort.

I said Americans loved concentration camps in the 1940s, and they surely did.

Just because, at the time, there may have been worse concentration camps elsewhere, does not negate the fact that Americans loved them, or the fact that they existed right here (there were a few in California).

http://americanhistory.si.edu/perfectun ... anent.html
"As a member of President Roosevelt's administration, I saw the United States Army give way to mass hysteria over the Japanese...Crowded into cars like cattle, these hapless people were hurried away to hastily constructed and thoroughly inadequate concentration camps, with soldiers with nervous muskets on guard, in the great American desert. We gave the fancy name of 'relocation centers' to these dust bowls, but they were concentration camps nonetheless."
—Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, Washington Evening Star, September 23, 1946
Or do you believe in some sort of revisionist history, that Americans in the 1940s weren't forcibly relocated to concentration camps solely on account of their race?
Fyyr
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Fyyr »

Tudamorf wrote:Or do you believe in some sort of revisionist history, that Americans in the 1940s weren't forcibly relocated to concentration camps solely on account of their race?
You wrote it again.
erianaiel
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by erianaiel »

Concentration camps were (at least in recent history) a british invention. During the boeren war in South Africa they rounded up and locked up the civilian population in camps, both as hostages and as an attempt to reduce the guerilla attacks by the boeren against their forces.
As such Tudamorf is correct in saying that what the USA did during WW2 to its citizens with Japanese ancentry was locking them up in concentration camps.

However, since knowledge what happened to Jews (and assorted other groups) in Germany and Poland during WW2 became common, the term 'concentration camp' has taken on an entirely different meaning. No longer does it stand for camps were certain group(s) of people were removed from the general population and kept under close guard, but rather it became a place where people were locked up until they could be murdered.
Under this meaning of the term what the Americans did to the Japanese descendants in their population most emphatically does NOT qualify as locking them up in concentration camps.

Now if Tuda can bring himself to calling them 'internment camps' we can put an end to a rather pointless discussion that has the potential to be extremely hostile. Or Fyyr can accept that the meaning of the words concentration camps has changed and Tuda's usage of them is correct when applied to the pre WW2 timeframe.


Eri
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Tudamorf
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Tudamorf »

erianaiel wrote:However, since knowledge what happened to Jews (and assorted other groups) in Germany and Poland during WW2 became common, the term 'concentration camp' has taken on an entirely different meaning. No longer does it stand for camps were certain group(s) of people were removed from the general population and kept under close guard, but rather it became a place where people were locked up until they could be murdered.
So by your definition, Auschwitz wasn't a "concentration camp" until they started killing the inhabitants?

Ridiculous. Of course it was a concentration camp; it was designed to be that way from the beginning. Just like the American camps.
erianaiel wrote:Under this meaning of the term what the Americans did to the Japanese descendants in their population most emphatically does NOT qualify as locking them up in concentration camps.
It's an unfair comparison, since the American camps were newer. If atomic weapons hadn't been developed and the war had lasted for another 5-10 years, those camps would have started looking a lot different. European camps/ghettos weren't so bad at the beginning either.

Just look at what happened at Abu Ghraib, and that's in modern times when concentration camps have fallen out of favor with the public.
erianaiel
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by erianaiel »

Tudamorf wrote:So by your definition, Auschwitz wasn't a "concentration camp" until they started killing the inhabitants
My .. you managed to read the exact opposite of what I actually said. I am sure that took some mental gymnastics.


Eri
Fyyr
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Fyyr »

erianaiel wrote:I am sure that took some mental gymnastics.
He does it to himself in the same thread, I wouldn't be too concerned that he does it to you.

T: I did not say that Internment Camps and Concentration Camps are the same.
T: They are exactly the same.

I don't even know why I posted this thread, now. Tudamorf plays Devil's Advocate against himself twice, and forgets what side he's on. I know I am not going to take the effort to figure out what he means, if he doesn't.

Sorry All., I must have been drunk.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:T: I did not say that Internment Camps and Concentration Camps are the same.
T: They are exactly the same.
The Honda Civic and Chevrolet Corvette are both cars.

It doesn't mean they're exactly the same.

American concentration camps/internment camps/insert-euphemism-here camps and European concentration camps were all concentration camps.

It doesn't mean they were exactly the same (at least not contemporaneously).

Get it now?
Last edited by Tudamorf on Sat Sep 24, 2011 2:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Internment VS Concentration Camps

Post by Tudamorf »

erianaiel wrote:My .. you managed to read the exact opposite of what I actually said.
No, I just pointed out the flaw in your logic.

If people have to be killed for it to be a concentration camp, then by your definition all those German camps were at, the beginning, not concentration camps.

And the fact that people are killed in camp A doesn't turn camp B from a "concentration camp" into something better.
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