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26-492: The RITA Award opened for entries in the fall. Entrants had to supply five printed books by the posted deadline. Each title was judged by five separate judges during the preliminary round. Finalists were announced in mid-March and winners were announced at the annual award ceremony, held on the last day of the RWA's National Conference, which was normally held in July. Winning authors received

52-450: A Time For Such a Time is the 2014 debut novel by Kate Breslin . The novel was considered controversial because of its subject matter of a Jewish woman falling in love with the head of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and then converting to Christianity. In 1944, a blonde-haired and blue-eyed Jewish woman, Hadassah Benjamin, is saved from a firing squad and forced into service by Colonel Aric von Schmidt of

78-408: A category of punishment which was reserved for those who were convicted of the most serious crimes, had many of the features which were associated with labor-camp imprisonment. According to historian Anne Applebaum , katorga was not a common sentence; approximately 6,000 katorga convicts were serving sentences in 1906 and 28,600 in 1916. These camps served as a model for political imprisonment during

104-410: A commitment to improve the diversity of the award. The board issued an apology after the 2019 finalists again underrepresented persons of color or LGBTQ+ persons. In 2019, Kennedy Ryan became the first Black woman to be awarded a RITA. RWA cancelled the 2020 RITA Awards after several contestants and judges withdrew due to diversity concerns. The award was abolished as part of a major restructuring of

130-597: A gold statuette while book editors received a plaque. In recent years, the RITA and Vivian awards have increasingly been at the centers of controversies because of objectionable content and a lack of diversity in the winning works. In 2015, For Such a Time , written by Kate Breslin and published by Bethany House , was nominated for two RITA Awards, in the Best Inspirational Romance and Best First Book categories. The nominations were criticized as antisemitic, because

156-519: A novel about interracial romance during the American Civil War , made no appearance among the RITA Awards finalists despite winning multiple other awards. Instead, all finalists were about white women, of which all but one fell in love with British aristocrats. In response, the RWA board noted that less than half of 1% of finalists were by Black authors, of which none had ever won the award, and gave

182-734: A series of reforms during the Khrushchev Thaw , the Gulag shrank to a quarter of its former size and receded in its significance in Soviet society. The Nazis first established concentration camps for tens of thousands of political prisoners, primarily members of the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany , in 1933, detaining tens of thousands of prisoners. Many camps were closed following releases of prisoners at

208-443: Is killing, are also imprecisely referred to as "concentration camps". The American Heritage Dictionary defines the term concentration camp as: "A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable." Although the first example of civilian internment may date as far back as

234-533: Is sometimes conflated with the concept of an " extermination camp " and historians debate whether the term "concentration camp" or the term "internment camp" should be used to describe other examples of civilian internment. Also during World War II, concentration camps were established by Italian , Japanese , US , and Canadian forces. The former label continues to see expanded use for cases post- World War II , for instance in relation to British camps in Kenya during

260-694: The British set up camps during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa for interning Boers during the same time period. The German Empire also established concentration camps during the Herero and Namaqua genocide (1904–1907); the death rate of these camps was 45 per cent, twice that of the British camps. The Russian Empire used forced exile and forced labour as forms of judicial punishment. Katorga ,

286-720: The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), and camps set up in Chile during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). According to the United States Department of Defense as many as 3 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim minority groups are being held in China 's internment camps which are located in the Xinjiang region and which American news reports often label as concentration camps . The camps were established in

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312-524: The SS . At a military camp in Czechoslovakia , Hadassah hides behind a false identity in order to survive as Colonel Aric’s secretary. This article about a romance novel of the 2010s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . This article about a World War II novel first published in

338-684: The Soviet period. In the midst of the Russian Civil War , Lenin and the Bolsheviks established "special" prison camps and "special" gas chambers, separate from its traditional prison system and under the control of the Cheka . These camps, as Lenin envisioned them, had a distinctly political purpose. These concentration camps were not identical to the Stalinist, but were introduced to isolate war prisoners given

364-744: The 1830s, the English term concentration camp was first used in order to refer to the reconcentration camps (Spanish: reconcentrados ) which were set up by the Spanish military in Cuba during the Ten Years' War (1868–1878). The label was applied yet again to camps set up by the United States during the Philippine–American War (1899–1902). And expanded usage of the concentration camp label continued, when

390-519: The 2010s is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . Concentration camp A concentration camp is a form of internment camp for confining political prisoners or politically targeted demographics , such as members of national or minority ethnic groups, on the grounds of state security, or for exploitation or punishment. Prominent examples of historic concentration camps include

416-690: The British confinement of non-combatants during the Second Boer War , the mass internment of Japanese-American citizens by the US during the Second World War , the Nazi concentration camps (which later morphed into extermination camps ), and the Soviet labour camps or gulag . The term concentration camp originates from the Spanish–Cuban Ten Years' War when Spanish forces detained Cuban civilians in camps in order to more easily combat guerrilla forces. Over

442-640: The RWA's awards to improve the diversity of award winners, provide training for judges, and add awards for unpublished novels and better definitions of award categories and romance subgenres. A new award, the Vivian, named after Black RWA founder Vivian Stephens , was launched in late 2020. The inaugural Vivian Award in 2021 caused further controversy. The "Romance with Religious or Spiritual Elements" category winner At Love’s Command , written by Karen Witemeyer and published by Bethany House , faced criticism of anti-Indigenous racism. The book featured an American soldier as

468-519: The book was set in Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II and featured a Jewish prisoner being saved by an SS officer, falling in love with him and converting to Christianity. The RITA Awards, like the English-language romance fiction industry as a whole, were overwhelmingly dominated by white authors. This caused controversy in 2018 when Alyssa Cole 's An Extraordinary Union ,

494-453: The camps were massively expanded and became increasingly deadly. At its peak, the Nazi concentration camp system was extensive, with as many as 15,000 camps and at least 715,000 simultaneous internees. About 1.65 million people were registered prisoners in the camps, of whom about a million died during their imprisonment. The total number of casualties in these camps is difficult to determine, but

520-499: The contest process, rubric, and entry and judging guidelines." A day later, however, the RWA rescinded the award with the following statement: "We cannot in good conscience uphold the decision of the judges in voting to celebrate a book that depicts the inhumane treatment of indigenous people and romanticizes real world tragedies that still affect people to this day." The RITA Award categories, as of 2017, were: The Vivian Award categories, as of 2021, are: Source: RWA For Such

546-423: The deliberate policy of extermination through labor in many of the camps was designed to ensure that the inmates would die of starvation, untreated disease and summary executions within set periods of time. In addition to the concentration camps, Nazi Germany established six extermination camps , specifically designed to kill millions of people, primarily by gassing . As a result, the term "concentration camp"

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572-420: The end of the year, and the camp population would continue to dwindle through 1936; this trend would reverse in 1937, with the Nazi regime arresting tens of thousands of " anti-socials ", a category that included Romani people as well as the homeless, mentally ill, and social non-conformists. Jews were increasingly targeted beginning in 1938. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland and the beginning of World War II,

598-561: The extreme historical situation following World War 1 . In 1929, the distinction between criminal and political prisoners was eliminated, administration of the camps was turned over to the Joint State Political Directorate , and the camps were greatly expanded to the point that they comprised a significant portion of the Soviet economy. This Gulag system consisted of several hundred camps for most of its existence and detained some 18 million from 1929 until 1953. As part of

624-513: The following decades the British during the Second Boer War and the Americans during the Philippine–American War also used concentration camps. The term "concentration camp" and "internment camp" are used to refer to a variety of systems that greatly differ in their severity, mortality rate, and architecture; their defining characteristic is that inmates are held outside the rule of law . Extermination camps or death camps, whose primary purpose

650-629: The male protagonist, who had taken part in massacres of Indigenous nations, including the Wounded Knee Massacre , and portrayed Indigenous religious practices as inferior to Christian ones. In response, Sara Whitney, the winner in the Best Mid-length Contemporary Romance category, announced that she would be returning her award in protest, because of "its narrow definition of inspirational romance and discussion of characters seeking redemption from 'crimes against humanity' prove

676-399: The organization has not listened or learned from its current or former members." The RWA initially defended the award, writing: "Romance with Religious or Spiritual Elements requires a redemptive arc as a genre convention." It said that no judges had submitted any concerns over the book, but that they would be creating a task force to assess "the overall effectiveness of the contest to include

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