Labor camp
![The White Sea–Baltic Canal opened on 2 August 1933 was the first major industrial project constructed in the Soviet Union using only forced labor.](/Images/godic/202501/23/Canal_Mer_Blanche4241.jpg")
![Polish Jews are lined up by German soldiers to do forced labour, September 1939, Nazi-occupied Poland](/Images/godic/202501/23/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-E10855,_Polen,_Juden_zur_Zwangsarbeit_befohlen4241.jpg")
![Registration of Jews by Nazis for forced labor, 1941](/Images/godic/202501/23/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-185-0112-12,_Belgrad,_Erfassung_von_Juden4241.jpg")
![A convict ploughing team breaking up new ground at the farm - Port Arthur, early 20th century](/Images/godic/202501/23/Convict_labourers_in_Australia_in_the_early_20th_century4242.jpg")
A labor camp or work camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment under the criminal code. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especially prison farms). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators.