"I didn't equate a POW camp with a concentration camp"

In this quote, Larry Hovis is making a distinction between a POW camp and a prisoner-of-war camp. A POW camp is a camp where prisoners of war are held, while a prisoner-of-war camp is a camp where people are held for political, racial, or religious factors. Hovis is indicating that he did not consider the POW camp to be as extreme as a concentration camp, which he did not equate the 2. This might be because POW camps are typically used to hold opponent combatants, while prisoner-of-war camp are used to hold civilians. Hovis is most likely making this distinction to emphasize the difference in between the two kinds of camps, and to point out that the POW camp he was in was not as extreme as a prisoner-of-war camp.