[Livia]

Originally Posted by Shaun

I agree with you in a sense but I would still argue that the extremity and the horror of the usage of concentration camps by Nazi Germany is more semantically appropriate to be labelled as "the Holocaust" more than a complete threshold over the concept of concentration camps itself. Whilst even the most shallow and uninformed observer of WW2 history would associate "concentration camps" with "the deaths of 6m+ Jews" it is still a grotesque situation for the US to find themselves in, especially with the knowledge and supposed wisdom of such horrific treatments of prisoners in the past.

Naturally it's a phrasing that is intended to provoke outrage and disgust but having seen photographs of some of their conditions I don't think that it's really being done falsely or with the intention of misleading people.

But to me it's a little like someone arguing that someone who's killed 10 people shouldn't be called a mass murderer because Pol Pot killed 2 million or so Cambodians. We don't need to witness the literal worst ever example of a phenomenon to label it that.

I agree with you too, in a sense. I wouldn't want to minimise what the internees in the USA are going through. It was the provocative use of the word. And yes, we have the Holocaust. And most people remember the six million Jews, but Jews make up only about a third of the total deaths during the Holocaust. I don't think it was entirely my faith made me object to the word although obviously part of it.

Good post though.