After the term "concentration camp" appeared in the 1890s, camps played a number of roles in wartime control of civilians. Internment during WWI normalized the concept globally and helped to usher in the Nazi system, which inaugurated the machinery of extermination. Even as the world tried to reckon with the singular nature of the Shoah, other camps persisted in its wake.
Andrea Pitzer, journalist and author of "One Long Night: A Global History of Concentration Camps," explored this phenomenon and its staggering toll, October 17, 2017 at Goldwin Smith Hall. The event was sponsored by the Cornell Jewish Studies Program with support from the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, Society for the Humanities, Institute for German Cultural Studies, and the Department of History.