Volume 48, Number 16 · October 18, 2001
A History of Horror
By Anne Applebaum
Le Siècle des camps
by Joël Kotek and Pierre Rigoulot
Paris: J.C. Lattès, 805 pp., FF175
Contrary to what might be expected, the first recorded use of the expression 'concentration camps' did not occur in either Germany or Russia. Nor was the term originally English, as many also mistakenly believe. In fact, as far as it is possible to ascertain, the first person to speak of concentration camps—or, more precisely, to speak of a policy of reconcentración—was Arsenio Martinez Campos, then the commander of the Spanish garrison in Cuba. The year was 1895, and Martinez Campos was fending off the latest in what seemed to be a never-ending series of local insurgencies. Looking for a permanent end to the Cuban independence struggle, he proposed, in a confidential letter to the Spanish government, to 'reconcentrate' the civilian inhabitants of the rural districts into camps. Although he conceded that the policy might lead to 'misery and famine,' it would also, he explained, deprive the insurgents of food, shelter, and support, thereby bringing the war to a more rapid conclusion.
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