The Road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.

British historian Sir Ian Kershaw.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Music I'm I'm I'm

I'm

the Episode 372, The Road to the Holocaust.

Today I want to continue our discussion about the Holocaust.

This is a difficult and complicated topic, and it's going to take more than this one episode to do it justice.

Today, though, I want to begin by talking about concentration camps.

Concentration camps have been part of the narrative of the history of the 20th century since some of the very first episodes.

In general, a concentration camp is a place where large numbers of people are being held in confinement.

A concentration camp is different from a prison

in that individuals held in prisons are there

because they have been found guilty of a specific crime,

or at least they are accused of committing some specific crime.

The inmates held in a concentration camp, by contrast,

are held there not for any specific act they are accused of committing,

but because they belong to a class of people,

the state has determined represent some kind of threat.

We exclude POW camps from this definition.

The term usually refers to the internment of civilians.

The term concentration camp entered the English language from Spanish,

...