Death camp - Definition and Overview

A death camp is a concentration camp which has been deliberately set up in order to kill those imprisoned there; such camps are not intended as punishment for criminal actions, rather, they are intended to facilitate genocide. The most famous death camps are the Nazi extermination camps, used during World War II.

The term is sometimes also used by political protestors to describe prison camps which they wish to deride, such as the Guantanamo Bay military prison; though those are not death camps. The term has also been applied to refugee camps, which have suffered a relatively high mortality rate.