"Unlike the concentration camps built in Nazi Germany during World War II, American concentration camps did not contain death chambers, and while there were instances in which prisoners were shot and killed by guards... there was no officially sanctioned systematic effort to exterminate prisoners. Because of the emotional association of "concentration camps" with the Nazi Holocaust, one is hesitant to use the phrase... However, President Roosevelt twice described the camps as concentration camps... and the joint Chiefs of Staff used the term early in 1942 when describing plans to house Japanese Americans... from the Hawaiian Islands. Other government entities used politically correct words such as "internment camps" and "relocation centers"... One is reluctant to use either... since both seem callous and dismissive of the trauma experienced by innocent prisoners held behind barbed wire under armed guard."