TRUDNA DEFINICJA OBOZU KONCENTRACYJNEGO
THE DIFFICULTY IN DEFINING CONCENTRATION CAMP

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses only the systems of concentration camps, omitting how individual camps functioned. The analysis starts with late 19th-century Spanish camps in Cuba and ends with late 20th-century camps for Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The first part of the paper discusses the problems of defining a concentration camp and proposes an original definition. The second part focuses on the victims, including their position within the camp hierarchy. The third part shows the practice of history politics based on the system of camps to which Silesians and other groups were sent after the war. Consequently, the paper offers an original definition of a concentration camp that is missing from many scholarly papers, and discusses Polish complications in history politics related to avoiding the term “Polish concentration camps”. The interpretation was based on the hermeneutics of academic literature and multimodal discourse analysis, especially as it pertains to post-war camps.

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