V.Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning

With more(prenominal) than 4 million copies in ingrain in the English language al whiz, Mans hunt for essence, the chilling and inspirational story of Viktor Frankls struggle to h hoary on to con move during his deuce-ace age as a pris superstar(a)r in Nazi concentration en multitudes, is a true classic. beacon trip out insistence is now pleased to demonstrate a specific establish edition of a give that was hailed in 1959 by Carl Rogers as genius of the give away rest contri providedions to psychoticlogical survey in the funda pass ontal fifty age. Frankls training as a psychiatrist informed entirely(prenominal) waking mo handst of his ordeal and whollyowed him a queer perspective on the psychology of survival.His assertion that the entrust to nitty-gritty is the basic motivation for pattern bread and thoter has for for ever so changed the expressive style we to a lower place affiliation our kind-heartedity in the musical n starnessing of chargeless. Mans reckon for inwardness AN INTRODUCTION TO LOGOTHERAPY Fourth edition Viktor E. Frankl PART virtuoso TRANSLATED BY ILSE LASCH PREFACE BY GORDON W. ALLPORT BEACON PRESS TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER, Beacon Press 25 Beacon Street Boston, Massachu determinets 02108-2892 www. beacon. org Beacon Press accommodates argon publi unload under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist take inledge of Congregations. 1959, 1962, 1984, 1992 by Viktor E.Frankl either disciplines reserved Printed in the United States of America initiative published in Ger populace in 1946 under the title Ein Psycholog erlebt pika Konzentrationslager. Original English title was From Death- dwell to Existentialism. 05 04 03 02 01 Contents acquaint by Gordon W. All air 7 Preface to the 1992 strain II PART ONE 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Experiences in a slow-wittedness camping 15 PART TWO Library of coitus Cataloging-in-Publication Data Frankl, Viktor Emil. Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationsl ager. English Mans search for beggarlying an introduction to log otherwiseapy / Viktor E.Frankl graphic symbol unrivaled translated by Use Lasch preface by Gordon W. Allport. 4th ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-8070-1426-5 (cloth) 1. Frankl, Viktor Emil. 2. Holocaust, Judaic (19391945) Personal narratives. 3. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Psychological aspects. 4. PsychologistsAustriaBiography. 5. Logotherapy. I. Title. D810J4F72713 1992 i5o. ig5dc2o 92-21055 Logotherapy in a Nutshell 101 accessory 1984 The Case for a Tragic Optimism 137 Selected English Language Bibliography of Logotherapy 155 close to the AuthorPreface Dr. Frankl, author-psychiatrist, some terms adopts his pa tients who suffer from a multitude of tor manpowerts capital and thin, why do you non commit suicide? From their an swers he ordure oft judgment of convictions play the guide-line for his psychotherapy in matchless breeding at that place is sock for ones childr en to tie to in a nonher emotional state, a levelnt to be utilize in a leash, perhaps just lingering memories worth preserving. To quaver these slender threads of a broken flavour into a fuddled pattern of mean ing and function is the object and ch anyenge of logotherapy, which is Dr.Frankls admit fluctuation of modern exis tential analysis. In this book, Dr. Frankl explains the experience which led to his disco sincerely of logotherapy. As a dourtime prisoner in vanquishial concentration ingroups he pitch himself stripped to peeled earth. His father, mother, brother, and his wife go byd in camps or were sent to the bollocks ovens, so that, buy food ing for his sister, his entire family perished in these camps. How could heevery pig mastermindedness lost, every value destroyed, suffering from hunger, cold and brutality, hourly expecting exterminationhow could he find carriage worth preserving?A psychiatrist who personally has con confront such(prenominal) ext remity is a psychiatrist worth listening to. He, if whatsoeverone, should be 8 Preface suitable to entrance our homo condition sagely and with compassion. Dr. Frankls words r from separately one a pro gively honest ring, for they counterweight on experiences too deep for deception. What he has to say pisss in prestige because of his present position on the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna and because of the ren throw of the logotherapy clinics that now be springing up in numerous lands, patterned on his throw famous Neurological Policlinic in Vienna.One cannot serve just comp atomic number 18 Viktor Frankls plan of attack to theory and therapy with the take on of his predecessor, Sigmund Freud. Both physicians concern themselves primarily with the nature and reown of neuroses. Freud finds the root of these distressing disorders in the anxiety caused by conflicting and un assured motives. Frankl distinguishes several(prenominal) forms of neurosis, and tra ces some(a) of them (the noogenic neuroses) to the failure of the sufferer to find meaning and a sense of responsibility in his existence. Freud stresses frustration in the sexual liveness Frankl, frustration in the will-to-meaning. In Europe today there is a marked turning away from Freud and a widespread embracing of Preface 9 existential analysis, which rents several related formsthe school of logotherapy existence one. It is attribute of Frankls tolerant outlook that he does not repudiate Freud, but builds fain on his contributions nor does he quarrel with other forms of existential therapy, but wel deals family relationship with them. The present narrative, brief though it is, is art in full constructed and gripping. On two make I read read it by at a virtuoso sitting, inefficient to break away from its spell.Somewhere beyond the midpoint of the story Dr. Frankl introduces his own philosophy of logotherapy. He introduces it so gently into the continuing narrative tha t nevertheless afterwardswards finishing the book does the commentator real(a)ize that here is an prove of profound depth, and not just one more brutal tale of concentration camps. From this autobiographical fragment the reader learns much. He learns what a hu homophile being does when he suddenly realizes he has noaffair to lose except his so ridiculously naked life. Frankls description of the mixed flow of emotion and apathy is arresting.First to the rescue comes a cold detached low density concerning ones fate. Swiftly, too, come strategies to preserve the remnants of ones life, though the chances of surviving are slight. Hunger, humiliation, up encumber and deep petulance at injustice are rendered tolerable by closely guard images of be belovedd persons, by religion, by a dark sense of humor, and sluice by glimpses of the healing beauties of naturea tree or a sunset. but these moments of comfort do not establish the will to digest unless they help the prisoner ma ke larger sense out of his obviously senseless suffering.It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism to make piddle it morose is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a social function in life at all, there must(prenominal) be a purpose in suffer ing and in dying. provided no patch can single out another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept t h e responsibility that his effect prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in cattiness of all indignities. Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzsche, He who has a why to tarryly can bear with al approximately any how. In the concentration camp every circumstance conspires to make the prisoner lose his hold. All the well- perish laidn(a)(prenominal) goals in life are snatched away. What alone re principal(prenominal)s is the delay of human freedomsthe ability to choose ones berth in a given set of part. This ultimate freedom, recogn ized by the ancient Stoics as well as by modern existentialists, eat ups on vivid significance in Frankls story. The prisoners were except just men, but some, at to the lowest ground level, by choosing to be worthy of their suffering proved mans capacity to rise higher up his outward fate. As a psychotherapist, the author, of course, indigences to 0 Preface know how men can be helped to come upon this distinctively human capacity. How can one awaken in a patient the observeing that he is responsible to life for some social occasion, however unappeasable his circumstances may be? Frankl gives us a moving sexual conquest of one collective therapeutic session he held with his fellow prisoners. At the publishers request Dr. Frankl has added a state ment of the basic tenets of logotherapy as well as a bibliog raphy. Up to now more or less of the publications of this Third Viennese educate of Psychotherapy (the predecessors being the Freudian and Adlerian Schools) dumbfound been chiefly in German.The reader will therefore welcome Dr. Frankls supplement to his personal narrative. Un care umpteen European existentialists, Frankl is neither pessimistic nor antireligious. On the contrary, for a writer who faces fully the ubiquity of suffering and the forces of evil, he takes a surprisingly hopeful view of mans capacity to transcend his predicament and disc everywhere an adequate guiding truth. I recommend this humble book heartily, for it is a gem of dramatic narrative, focus upon the deepest of human problems.It has literary and philosophical merit and pro vides a oblige introduction to the or so significant psychological movement of our day. GORDON W. ALLPORT Preface to the 1992 Edition This book has now lived to estimate nearly one hundred marking ings in Englishin addition to having been published in cosh other languages. And the English editions alone adopt sell more than three million copies. These are the ironical facts, and they may well be the dry land why reporters of American newspapers and particularly of American TV blank spaces more often than not start their in terviews, after listing these facts, by ex filming Dr.Frankl, your book has become a true bestsellerhow do you regain somewhat such a success? Whereupon I react by reporting that in the premier(prenominal) sic I do not at all see in the bestseller status of my book an motion and accomplishment on my part but rather an expression of the chastisement of our time if hun dreds of thousands of people r distributively out for a book whose very title promises to deal with the question of a meaning to life, it must be a question that burns under their flipnails.To be sure, something else may fork everyplace contributed to the impact of the book its arc secondment, theoretical part (Logother apy in a Nutshell) boils stamp out, as it were, to the lesson one may di mollify down from the starting signal part, the autobiographical account (Experien ces in a Concentration Camp), whereas Part One 11 Gordon W. Allport, erstwhile a professor of psychology at Harvard University, was one of the foremost writers and larners in the field in this hemisphere. He was author of a large calculate of original works on psychology and was the editor of the Journal of ab conventionality and Social Psychology.It is chiefly through the pioneering work of Professor All port that Dr. Frankls momentous theory was introduced to this coun campaign moreover, it is to his credit that the interest shown here in logotherapy is growing by leaps and bounds. 12 Preface to the 1992 Edition Preface to the 1992 Edition 13 serves as the existential validation of my theories. Thus, both parts mutually support their credibility. I had none of this in mind when I wrote the book in 1945. And I did so within nine successive age and with the firm determination that the book should be published anonymously.In fact, the introductory impression of the original Ge rman version does not show my spot on the cover, though at the finish moment, just before the books initial publication, I did tolerately give in to my friends who had urged me to let it be published with my natural luggage compartment at least on the title page. At first, however, it had been written with the peremptory conviction that, as an anonymous opus, it could never earn its author literary fame. I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of a concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, scour the most miserable ones.And I cerebration that if the point were demonstrated in a placement as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore mat up responsible for writing waste what I had gone through, for I thought it might be reformative to people who are prone to despair. And so it is both strange and remarkable to me that among some dozens of books I have authoredprecisely this one, which I h ad mean to be published anonymously so that it could never build up any reputation on the part of the author, did become a success. again and over again I therefore admonish my students both in Europe and in America Dont aim at successthe more you aim at it and make it a tar determine, the more you are going to miss it. For success, alike(p) happiness, cannot be pursued it must ensue, and it moreover does so as the fortuitous facial expression-effect of ones dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of ones surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the afore celebrateed(prenominal) holds for success you have to let it happen by not affectionateness nigh it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to adjudge it out to the best of our knowledge. whence you will live to see that in the longsighted runin the long run, I say success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to echo of it. The reader may ask me why I did not try to escape what was in s snap for me after Hitler had occupied Austria. Let me answer by re auguring the following story. Shortly before the United States entered World state of war II, I received an invitation to come to the American Consulate in Vienna to natural selection up my immigration visa. My old parents were overjoyed because they expected that I would currently be allowed to leave Austria. I suddenly hesitated, however.The question beset me could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, instead or later on, to a concentration camp, or horizontal off to a alleged(prenominal) extermination camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my drum cope child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them? I pondered the problem this wa y and that but could not arrive at a solution this was the type of plight that do one wish for a hint from Heaven, as the excogitate goes.It was hence that I noticed a routine of marble deceitfulness on a table at bag. When I asked my father approximately it, he explained that he had found it on the situate where the National Socialists had burned down the largest Viennese synagogue. He had taken the piece home because it was a part of the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. One gilded Hebrew earn was engraved on the piece my father explained that this letter stood for one of the Commandments. eagerly I asked, Which one is it? He answered, Honor thy father and thy mother that thy age may be long upon the land. At that moment I heady to perch with my father and my mother upon the land, and to let the American visa snuff it VIKTOR E. FRANKL Vienna, 1992. PART ONE Experiences in a Concentration Camp THIS mass DOES NOT CLAIM TO BE an account of facts a nd yetts but of personal experiences, experiences which millions of prisoners have suffered time and again. It is the inside story of a concentration camp, told by one of its survivors. This tale is not concerned with the great horrors, which have already been set forth often enough (though less often believed), but with the multitude of runty torments.In other words, it will try to answer this question How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner? Most of the level(p)ts suckd here did not take draw a bead on in the large and famous camps, but in the small ones where most of the real extermination took place. This story is not closely the suffering and shoemakers last of great heroes and martyrs, nor is it about(predicate) the prominent Caposprisoners who acted as trustees, having special privilegesor well-known pris oners.Thus it is not so much concerned with the sufferings of the mighty, but with the sacrifices, the crucifix ion and the deaths of the great army of unknown and unrecorded victims. It was these common prisoners, who bore no dis tinguishing mark on their sleeves, whom the Capos really despised. While these ordinary prisoners had critical or noth- 18 Mans lookup for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 19 ing to eat, the Capos were never nipping-set in fact legion(predicate) another(prenominal) of the Capos removeded countter in the camp than they had in their entire lives.Often they were harder on the prisoners than were the guards, and beat them more cruelly than the SS men did. These Capos, of course, were elect only from those prisoners whose characters promised to make them suitable for such procedures, and if they did not comply with what was expected of them, they were immediately demoted. They soon became much like the SS men and the camp wardens and may be judged on a similar psychologi cal basis. It is golden for the removedr to get the wrong caprice of camp lif e, a conception mingled with sentiment and pity.Little does he know of the hard fight for existence which raged among the prisoners. This was an severe strug gle for fooling bread and for life itself, for ones own sake or for that of a unplayful friend. Let us take the case of a steer which was officially announced to transfer a current number of prisoners to an other camp but it was a fairly safe guess that its final destination would be the gas house. A selection of sick or feeble prisoners incapable(p) of work would be sent to one of the boastful central camps which were fitted with gas chambers and crematoriums.The selection process was the signal for a free fight among all the prisoners, or of mathematical group against group. All that subject fielded was that ones own name and that of ones friend were crossed off the list of victims, though everyone knew that for each man spared another victim had to be found. A expressed number of prisoners had to go with each tra nsport. It did not really matter which, since each of them was nothing but a number. On their admission to the camp (at least this was the method in Auschwitz) all their docu- ments had been taken from them, together with their other possessions.Each prisoner, therefore, had had an oppor tunity to claim a fictitious name or profession and for vari ous concludes many did this. The governance were interested only in the captives numbers. These numbers were often tattooed on their skin, and also had to be sewn to a trusted spot on the trousers, jacket, or coat. Any guard who wanted to make a charge against a prisoner just glanced at his number (and how we dreaded such glances ) he never asked for his name. To return to the convoy about to depart. There was nei ther time nor lust to consider moral or ethical issues.Every man was controlled by one thought only to keep himself viable for the family postponement for him at home, and to save his friends. With no hesitation, therefore , he would arrange for another prisoner, another number, to take his place in the transport. As I have already mentioned, the process of selecting Capos was a negative one only the most brutal of the pris oners were chosen for this transaction (although there were some cheerful exceptions). But apart from the selection of Capos which was undertaken by the SS, there was a sort of selfselecting process going on the full-page time among all of the prisoners.On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence they were pre pared to use every means, honest and otherwise, level brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracleswhatever one may choose to call themwe know the best of us did not return. Many factual accounts about concentration camps are al ready on record. Here, facts will b e significant only as far as 20 Mans Search for MeaningExperiences in a Concentration Camp 21 they are part of a mans experiences. It is the exact nature of these experiences that the following essay will essay to describe. For those who have been inmates in a camp, it will tone-beginning to explain their experiences in the light of present-day knowledge. And for those who have never been inside, it may help them to comprehend, and above all to understand, the experiences of that only too small per centage of prisoners who survived and who now find life very difficult. These causality prisoners often say, We dislike talking about our experiences.No explanations are needed for those who have been inside, and the others will under stand neither how we felt then nor how we feel now. To attempt a methodical presentation of the down is very difficult, as psychology requires a certain scientific de tachment. But does a man who makes his observations while he himself is a prisoner po ssess the necessary detach ment? Such detachment is granted to the outsider, but he is too far removed to make any storys of real value. just the man inside knows. His judgments may not be objective his evaluations may be out of proportion.This is inevita ble. An attempt must be made to repeal any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty of a book of this kind. At times it will be necessary to have the courage to tell of very in timate experiences. I had intended to write this book anonymously, exploitation my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I adage that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value, and that I must have the courage to state my convictions distributely. I therefore refrained from deleting any of the passages, in spite of an intense dislike of exhibitionism.I shall leave it to others to di steady the contents of this book into dry theories. These might become a contribution to the psychology of prison life, which was i nvesti furnishd after the First World War, and which acquainted us with the syndrome of barbed wire sickness. We are indebted to the Second World War for enriching our knowledge of the psychopathology of the masses, (if I may quote a varia tion of the well-known phrase and title of a book by LeBon), for the war gave us the war of nerves and it gave us the concentration camp.As this story is about my experiences as an ordinary pris oner, it is important that I mention, not without pride, that I was not sedulous as a psychiatrist in camp, or compensate as a doctor, except for the last hardly a(prenominal)er weeks. A few of my swains were lucky enough to be employed in poorly heated first-aid posts applying bandages made of scraps of waste paper. But I was Number 119,104, and most of the time I was digging and put courses for railway lines. At one time, my job was to dig a tunnel, without help, for a water main under a road.This feat did not go unrewarded just before Christ mas 1944, I was presented with a gift of so-called premium coupons. These were issued by the construction firm to which we were practically sold as slaves the firm paid the camp authorities a located price per day, per prisoner. The coupons cost the firm fifty pfennigs each and could be ex changed for six cigarettes, often weeks later, although they sometimes lost their validity. I became the proud owner of a token worth twelve cigarettes. But more important, the cig arettes could be exchanged for twelve dopes, and twelve dope ups were often a very real respite from starvation.The privilege of actually smoking cigarettes was reserved for the Capo, who had his assured quota of period of timeical coupons or possibly for a prisoner who worked as a tribal chief in a warehouse or workshop and received a few cigarettes in exchange for doing dangerous jobs. The only exceptions to this were those who had lost the will to live and wanted to enjoy their last days. Thus, when we saw a bl oke smoking his own cigarettes, we knew he had given up faith 22 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 23 n his strength to carry on, and, once lost, the will to live seldom returned. When one examines the vast amount of material which has been amassed as the result of many prisoners observa tions and experiences, three frames of the inmates affable reactions to camp life become apparent the period follow ing his admission the period when he is well entrenched in camp routine and the period following his release and liberation. The symptom that characterizes the first phase is shock. Under certain conditions shock may even conduct the pris oners formal admission to the camp.I shall give as an ex ample the circumstances of my own admission. Fifteen hundred persons had been traveling by train for several days and iniquitys there were eighty people in each coach. All had to lie on big top of their luggage, the few rem nants of their personal possessions. The carriages were so full that only the top parts of the windows were free to let in the grey of infiltrate. Everyone expected the train to head for some munitions factory, in which we would be em ployed as forced labor. We did not know whether we were still in Silesia or already in Poland.The engines whistle had an uncanny sound, like a cry for help sent out in com miseration for the unhappy demoralise which it was destined to lead into perdition. and then the train shunted, obviously nearing a main station. Suddenly a cry broke from the ranks of the anxious passengers, There is a sign, Auschwitz Everyones heart missed a beat at that moment. Auschwitzthe very name stood for all that was horrible gas chambers, crematoriums, massacres. Slowly, to the highest degree hesi tatingly, the train moved on as if it wanted to spare its passengers the dreadful realization as long as possible AuschwitzWith the progressive dawn, the outlines of an immense camp became visible long stretches of several rows of barbed wire fences watch towers search lights and long columns of chevy human figures, grey in the greyness of dawn, trekking along the straight perfect(a) roads, to what destination we did not know. There were isolated shouts and whistles of command. We did not know their meaning. My image led me to see gallows with people dangling on them. I was horrified, but this was just as well, because step by step we had to become alter to a terrible and immense horror. at long last we moved into the station. The initial silence was slew off by shouted commands. We were to hear those rough, shrill tones from then on, over and over again in all the camps. Their sound was almost like the last cry of a victim, and yet there was a difference. It had a abrase hoarseness, as if it came from the throat of a man who had to keep shouting like that, a man who was being murdered again and again. The carriage doorways were flung open and a small detachment of prisoners stormed i nside. They wore striped resemblings, their heads were groom, but they looked well fed.They verbalize in every possible European tongue, and all with a certain amount of humor, which sounded grotesque under the circumstances. alike(p) a drowning man clutching a straw, my ininnate(p) optimism (which has often controlled my feelings even in the most desperate situa tions) clung to this thought These prisoners look kinda well, they seem to be in good animate and even laugh. Who knows? I might fudge to share their elevateable position. In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delu sion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute.We, too, clung to shreds of hope and believed to the last moment that it would not be so gravely. Just the sight of the red cheeks and round faces of 24 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 25 those prisoners was a great encourag ement. Little did we know then that they formed a specially chosen elite, who for years had been the receiving squad for new transports as they rolled into the station day after day. They took charge of the new arrivals and their luggage, including scarce items and black-market jewelry. Auschwitz must have been a strange spot in this Europe of the last years of the war.There must have been unique treasures of gold and silver, platinum and diamonds, not only in the huge keephouses but also in the detainment of the SS. Fifteen hundred captives were cooped up in a shed built to accommodate probably two hundred at the most. We were cold and hungry and there was not enough room for everyone to squat on the ransack ground, let alone to lie down. One five-ounce piece of bread was our only food in four days. Yet I heard the aged prisoners in charge of the shed bargain with one member of the receiving caller about a tie-pin made of platinum and diamonds. Most of the profits would ev entually be traded for liquorschnapps.I do not remember any more just how many thousands of marks were needed to purchase the quantity of schnapps required for a gay evening, but I do know that those long-term prisoners needed schnapps. Under such conditions, who could blame them for trying to heap themselves? There was another group of prisoners who got liquor supplied in al most unlimited quantities by the SS these were the men who were employed in the gas chambers and crematoriums, and who knew very well that one day they would be re lieved by a new shift of men, and that they would have to leave their enforced occasion of executioner and become victims themselves.Nearly everyone in our transport lived under the illusion that he would be reprieved, that everything would yet be well. We did not realize the meaning undersurface the scene that was to follow presently. We were told to leave our luggage in the train and to smooth into two lineswomen on one side, men on the otherin order to file past a ripened SS officer. Surprisingly enough, I had the courage to hide my haver sack under my coat. My line filed past the officer, man by man. I realized that it would be dangerous if the officer spotty my bag.He would at least knock me down I knew that from previous experience. Instinctively, I straightened on approaching the officer, so that he would not notice my heavy(a) load. Then I was face to face with him. He was a tall-growing man who looked slim and fit in his spotless uniform. What a logical argument to us, who were untidy and grimy after our long journey He had imitation an attitude of careless ease, supporting his full elbow with his left over(p)(a) hand. His remedy hand was lifted, and with the forefinger of that hand he pointed very leisurely to the right or to the left.None of us had the slightest idea of the sinister meaning behind that diminished movement of a mans finger, pointing now to the right and now to the left, but far more fre quently to the left. It was my turn. Somebody whispered to me that to be sent to the right side would mean work, the way to the left being for the sick and those incapable of work, who would be sent to a special camp. I just waited for things to take their course, the first of many such times to come. My haver sack weighed me down a bit to the left, but I made an effort to strait upright.The SS man looked me over, appeared to hesitate, then put both his pass on my shoulders. I assay very hard to look smart, and he turned my shoulders very easily until I faced right, and I moved over to that side. The significance of the finger game was explained to us in the evening. It was the first selection, the first verdict made on our existence or non-existence. For the great ma jority of our transport, about 90 per cent, it meant death. Their sentence was carried out within the succeeding(a) few hours. Those who were sent to the left were marched from the station straight to the cremator ium.This building, as I was 26 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 27 told by someone who worked there, had the word bath written over its doors in several European languages. On entering, each prisoner was handed a piece of soap, and then but mercifully I do not need to describe the events which followed. Many accounts have been written about this horror. We who were saved, the minority of our transport, found out the truth in the evening. I inquired from prisoners who had been there for some time where my colleague and friend P had been sent. Was he sent to the left side? Yes, I replied. Then you can see him there, I was told. Where? A hand pointed to the chimney a few hundred yards off, which was sending a column of set fire to up into the grey sky of Poland. It dissolved into a sinister debauch of smoke. Thats where your friend is, floating up to Heaven, was the answer. But I still did not understand until the truth was explained to me in plain words . But I am telling things out of their turn. From a psycho logical point of view, we had a long, long way in front of us from the break of that dawn at the station until our first darks rest at the camp.Escorted by SS guards with fundsed guns, we were made to run from the station, past electrically charged barbed wire, through the camp, to the cleansing station for those of us who had passed the first selection, this was a real bath. Again our illusion of reprieve found confirmation. The SS men seemed almost charming. Soon we found out their rea son. They were skillful to us as long as they saw watches on our wrists and could persuade us in well-meaning tones to hand them over. Would we not have to hand over all our possessions anyway, and hy should not that relatively nice person have the watch? Maybe one day he would do one a good turn. We waited in a shed which seemed to be the anteroom to the disinfecting chamber. SS men appeared and spread out blankets into which we had to throw all our possessions, all our watches and jewelry. There were still naive prisoners among us who asked, to the amusement of the more sea soned ones who were there as helpers, if they could not keep a wedding company ring, a medal or a good-luck piece. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away.I try to take one of the old prisoners into my confi dence. Approaching him furtively, I pointed to the roll of paper in the versed pocket of my coat and utter, Look, this is the manuscript of a scientific book. I know what you will say that I should be grateful to escape with my life, that that should be all I can expect of fate. But I cannot help myself. I must keep this manuscript at all be it contains my lifes work. Do you understand that? Yes, he was beginning to understand.A grin spread slowly over his face, first piteous, then more amused, mock ing, insulting, until he bellowed one word at me in answer to my question, a word that was ever present in t he vocabu lary of the camp inmates Shit At that moment I saw the plain truth and did what marked the culminating point of the first phase of my psychological reaction I struck out my whole former life. Suddenly there was a stir among my fellow travelers, who had been standing about with pale, frightened faces, help lessly debating. Again we heard the hoarsely shouted com mands. We were determined with blows into the immediate anteroom of the bath.There we assembled around an SS man who waited until we had all arrived. Then he said, I will give you two minutes, and I shall time you by my watch. In these two minutes you will get fully peel 28 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 29 and drop everything on the floor where you are standing. You will take nothing with you except your stead, your flush or suspenders, and possibly a truss. I am starting to count now With un think ofable haste, people tore off their clothes. As the time grew shorter, they became increasingly nervous and pulled clumsily at their underwear, belts and shoe laces.Then we heard the first sounds of whipping leather straps beating down on naked bodies. Next we were herded into another room to be shaved not only our heads were shorn, but not a hair was left on our entire bodies. Then on to the showers, where we lined up again. We just recognized each other but with great relief some people noted that real water dripped from the sprays. While we were waiting for the shower, our starkness was brought home to us we really had nothing now except our superfluous bodieseven minus hair all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.What else remained for us as a material link with our former lives? For me there were my glasses and my belt the latter I had to exchange later on for a piece of bread. There was an extra bit of excitement in store for the owners of trusses. In the evening the senior prisoner in charge of our hut welcomed us with a speech in which he ga ve us his word of recognise that he would hang, personally, from that beamhe pointed to itany per son who had sewn money or precious stones into his truss. Proudly he explained that as a senior inhabitant the camp laws entitled him to do so. Where our shoes were concerned, matters were not so simple.Although we were supposed to keep them, those who had fairly decent pairs had to give them up after all and were given in exchange shoes that did not fit. In for real trouble were those prisoners who had followed the ap- parently well-meant advice (given in the anteroom) of the senior prisoners and had shortened their jackboots by cut ting the tops off, then smearing soap on the cut edges to hide the sabotage. The SS men seemed to have waited for just that. All suspected of this criminal offence had to go into a small adjoining room. After a time we again heard the lashings of the strap, and the screams of tortured men.This time it lasted for quite a while. Thus the illusions some of u s still held were destroyed one by one, and then, quite unexpectedly, most of us were overcome by a grim sense of humor. We knew that we had nothing to lose except our so ridiculously naked lives. When the showers started to run, we all tried very hard to make fun, both about ourselves and about each other. After all, real water did flow from the spraysl by from that strange kind of humor, another sensa tion seized us curiosity. I have see this kind of curiosity before, as a fundamental reaction toward certain strange circumstances.When my life was once endangered by a upgrade accident, I felt only one sensation at the lively moment curiosity, curiosity as to whether I should come out of it alive or with a fractured skull or some other injuries. Cold curiosity predominated even in Auschwitz, some how detaching the mind from its surroundings, which came to be regarded with a kind of objectivity. At that time one cultivated this state of mind as a means of protection. We were anxi ous to know what would happen next and what would be the consequence, for example, of our standing in the open air, in the chill of late autumn, stark naked, and still wet from the showers.In the next few days our curi osity evolved into rage surprise that we did not catch cold. There were many similar surprises in store for new ar- 30 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 31 rivals. The medical men among us learned first of all Textbooks tell lies Somewhere it is said that man cannot exist without repose for more than a stated number of hours. Quite wrongl I had been convert that there were certain things I just could not do I could not sleep without this or I could not live with that or the other.The first night in Auschwitz we slept in beds which were constructed in tiers. On each tier (measuring about six-and-a-half to eight feet) slept nine men, directly on the boards. devil blankets were shared by each nine men. We could, of course, lie only on our s ides, crowded and huddled against each other, which had some advantages because of the bitterly cold. Though it was forbid to take shoes up to the bunks, some people did use them secretly as pillows in spite of the fact that they were caked with mud. Otherwise ones head had to rest on the crook of an almost dislocated arm.And yet sleep came and brought acquittal and relief from pain for a few hours. I would like to mention a few similar surprises on how much we could endure we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lost all ap pearance of being shirts. For days we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water-pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate (that is, unless there was halt bite).Or for instance, a light sleeper, who used to be dis turbed by t he slightest dissonance in the next room, now found himself lying pressed against a comrade who snored loudly a few inches from his ear and yet slept quite soundly through the noise. If someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevskis statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how. But our psychological investigations have not taken us that far yet neither had we prisoners reached that point. We were still in the first phase of our psychological reactions.The thought of suicide was diverted by nearly every one, if only for a brief time. It was born of the hopelessness of the situation, the constant danger of death looming over us nonchalant and hourly, and the closeness of the deaths suffered by many of the others. From personal convictions which will be mentioned later, I made myself a firm promise, on my first evening in camp, that I would not run into the wire. This was a p hrase used in camp to describe the most popular method of suicide sorrowful the electrically charged barbed-wire fence. It was not entirely difficult for me to make this decision.There was fine point in commit ting suicide, since, for the average inmate, life expectation, designing objectively and counting all likely chances, was very poor. He could not with any assurance expect to be among the small percentage of men who survived all the selections. The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few daysafter all, they spared him the act of committing suicide. Friends whom I have met later have told me that I was not one of those whom the shock of admission greatly de pressed.I only smiled, and quite sincerely, when the follow ing episode occurred the morning after our first night in Auschwitz. In spite of strict orders not to leave our blocks, a colleague of mine, who had arrived in Aus chwitz several weeks previously, smuggled himself into our hut. He wanted to calm and comfort us and tell us a few things. He had become so thin that at first we did not recognize him. With a show of good humor and a Devil-may-care attitude he gave us a few hurried tips Dont be hangdog Dont fear the selections Dr.M (the SS medical chief) has a soft spot for doctors. (This was wrong my friends affable 32 Mans Search for Meaning words were misleading. One prisoner, the doctor of a block, of huts and a man of some sixty years, told me how he had entreated Dr. M to let off his son, who was destined for gas. Dr. M coldly refused. ) But one thing I beg of you he continued, shave daily, if at all possible, even if you have to use a piece of glass to do it . . . even if you have to give your last piece of bread for it. You will look younger and the scraping will make your cheeks look ruddier.If you want to stay alive, there is only one way look fit for work. If you even limp, because, le t us say, you have a small blister on your heel, and an SS man spots this, he will wave you aside and the next day you are sure to be gassed. Do you know what we mean by a Moslem? A man who looks miserable, down and out, sick and drain, and who cannot manage hard physical labor any longer . . . that is a Moslem. sort of or later, usually sooner, every Moslem goes to the gas chambers. Therefore, remember shave, stand and walk smartly then you need not be afraid of gas.All of you standing here, even if you have only been here twenty-four hours, you need not fear gas, except perhaps you. And then he pointed to me and said, I hope you dont mind my telling you frankly. To the others he repeated, Of all of you he is the only one who must fear the next selection. So, dont worry And I smiled. I am now convinced that anyone in my place on that day would have done the same. Experiences in a Concentration Camp I think it was Lessing who once said, There are things which must cause you to lose your footing or you have none to lose. An ab modal(prenominal) reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. Even we psychiatrists expect the reactions of a man to an abnormal situation, such as being com mitted to an asylum, to be abnormal in proportion to the degree of his normality. The reaction of a man to his admission to a concentration camp also represents an abnormal state of mind, but judged objectively it is a normal and, as will be shown later, typical reaction to the given circumstances. These reactions, as I have depict them, began to change in a few days.The prisoner passed from the first to the second phase the phase of relative apathy, in which he achieved a kind of emotional death. Apart from the already described reactions, the newly arrived prisoner experienced the tortures of other most painful emotions, all of which he tried to deaden. First of all, there was his boundless longing for his home and his family. This often could become so acute that he felt himself consumed by longing. Then there was disgust disgust with all the ugliness which surrounded him, even in its mere external forms.Most of the prisoners were given a uniform of rags which would have made a scarecrow elegant by comparison. betwixt the huts in the camp lay pure filth, and the more one worked to polish off it away, the more one had to come in contact with it. It was a favourite practice to detail a new arrival to a work group whose job was to clean the latrines and remove the sewage. If, as usually happened, some of the excrement splashed into his face during its transport over bumpy fields, any sign of disgust by the prisoner or any attempt to wipe off the filth would only be penalize with a blow from a Capo.And thus the mortification of normal reactions was hastened. At first the prisoner looked away if he saw the punishment parades of another group he could not bear to see fellow prisoners march up and down for hours in the mire, their movements d irected by blows. Days or weeks later things changed. Early in the morning, when it was still dark, the prisoner stood in front of the gate with his detachment, ready to march. He heard a scream and saw how 34 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 35 comrade was knocked down, pulled to his feet again, and knocked down once moreand why? He was agitated but had reported to sick-bay at an improper time. He was being punished for this irregular attempt to be relieved of his duties. But the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. By then his feelings were blunted, and he watched un moved. Another example he found himself waiting at sick bay, hoping to be granted two days of light work inside the camp because of injuries or perhaps edema or fever.He stood unmoved while a twelve-year-old boy was carried in who had been forced to stand at attention for hours in the snow or to work outside with bare feet because there were no shoes for him in the camp. His toes had become frost bitten, and the doctor on duty picked off the b omit gan grenous stumps with tweezers, one by one. Disgust, horror and pity are emotions that our spectator could not really feel any more. The sufferers, the dying and the dead, be came such commonplace sights to him after a few weeks of camp life that they could not move him any more.I exhausted some time in a hut for typhus patients who ran very high temperatures and were often delirious, many of them moribund. After one of them had just died, I watched without any emotional upset the scene that followed, which was repeated over and over again with each death. One by one the prisoners approached the still spry body. One grabbed the remains of a messy meal of potatoes another unconquerable that the corpses wooden shoes were an improve ment on his own, and exchanged them. A third man did the same with the dead mans coat, and another was glad to be able to secure somejust imagine genuine string.All this I watched with unconcern. Eventually I asked the nurse to remove the body. When he decided to do so, he took the corpse by its legs, allowing it to drop into the small corridor surrounded by the two rows of boards which were the beds for the fifty typhus patients, and dragged it across the bumpy earthen floor toward the door. The two step which led up into the open air always constituted a prob lem for us, since we were exhausted from a chronic lack of food. After a few months stay in the camp we could not walk up those steps, which were each about six inches high, without putting our hands on the door jambs to pull our selves up.The man with the corpse approached the steps. Wearily he dragged himself up. Then the body first the feet, then the trunk, and finallywith an uncanny rattling noise the head of the corpse bumped up the two steps. My place was on the opposite side of the hut, next to the small, sole window, which was built near the floor. While my cold hands clasped a bowl of hot soup from which I sipped greedily, I happened to look out the window. The corpse which had just been removed stared in at me with shining eyes. Two hours before I had spoken to that man.Now I continued sipping my soup. If my lack of emotion had not surprised me from the standpoint of professional interest, I would not remember this incident now, because there was so little feeling in volved in it. Apathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care any more, were the symptoms arising during the second stage of the prisoners psychological re actions, and which eventually made him insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. By means of this insensibility the pris oner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protec tive shell. 6 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 37 Beatings occurred on the slightest provocation, sometimes for no reason at all. For example, bread was ration ed out at our work site and we had to line up for it. Once, the man behind me stood off a little to one side and that lack of symmetry displeased the SS guard. I did not know what was going on in the line behind me, nor in the mind of the SS guard, but suddenly I received two sharp blows on my head. Only then did I spot the guard at my side who was using his stick.At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children) it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all. Strangely enough, a blow which does not even find its mark can, under certain circumstances, hurt more than one that finds its mark. Once I was standing on a railway chase in a snowstorm. In spite of the weather our party had to keep on working. I worked quite hard at mending the track with gravel, since that was the only way to keep warm. For only one moment I paused to get my breath and to lean on my shovel.Unfortuna tely the guard turned around just then and thought I was loafing. The pain he caused me was not from any insults or any blows. That guard did not think it worth his while to say anything, not even a swear word, to the ragged, emaciated figure standing before him, which probably reminded him only vaguely of a human form. Instead, he playfully picked up a stone and threw it at me. That, to me, seemed the way to attract the attention of a beast, to call a national animal back to its job, a creature with which you have so little in common that you do not even punish it.The most painful part of beatings is the insult which they imply. At one time we had to carry some long, heavy girders over icy tracks. If one man slipped, he endangered not only himself but all the others who carried the same girder. An old friend of mine had a congenitally dislocated hip. He was glad to be capable of working in spite of it, since the physically disabled were almost certainly sent to death when a select ion took place. He limped over the track with an oddly heavy girder, and seemed about to fall and drag the others with him. As yet, I was not carrying a girder so I jumped to his assistance without stopping to think.I was immediately hit on the back, rudely repri manded and ordered to return to my place. A few minutes previously the same guard who struck me had told us deprecatingly that we pigs lacked the spirit of comrade ship. Another time, in a forest, with the temperature at 2F, we began to dig up the topsoil, which was frozen hard, in order to lay water pipes. By then I had grown rather weak physi cally. on came a foreman with chubby rosy cheeks. His face definitely reminded me of a pigs head. I noticed that he wore lovely warm gloves in that bitter cold. For a time he watched me silently.I felt that trouble was brewing, for in front of me lay the mound of earth which showed exactly how much I had dug. Then he began You pig, I have been watching you the whole time Ill teach you to work, yet Wait till you dig dirt with your teethyoull die like an animal In two days Ill finish you off Youve never done a stroke of work in your life. What were you, swine? A businessman? I was past caring. But I had to take his threat of killing me seriously, so I straightened up and looked him directly in the eye. I was a doctora specialist. What? A doctor?I bet you got a lot of money out of people. As it happens, I did most of my work for no money at all, in clinics for the poor. But, now, I had said too much. He threw himself on me and knocked me down, shouting like a madman. I can no longer remember what he shouted. I want to show with this apparently trivial story that 38 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 39 there are moments when indignation can rouse even a seemingly tough prisonerindignation not about cruelty or pain, but about the insult connected with it. That time blood rushed to my head because I had to listen o a man judge my lif e who had so little idea of it, a man (I must confess the following remark, which I made to my fellow-prisoners after the scene, afforded me childish relief) who looked so staring(a) and brutal that the nurse in the outpatient ward in my hospital would not even have admitted him to the waiting room. Fortunately the Capo in my working party was obligated to me he had taken a liking to me because I listened to his love stories and matrimonial troubles, which he poured out during the long marches to our work site. I had made an impression on him with my diagnosis of his character and with my psychotherapeutic advice.After that he was grate ful, and this had already been of value to me. On several previous cause he had reserved a place for me next to him in one of the first five rows of our detachment, which usually consisted of two hundred and eighty men. That favor was important. We had to line up early in the morn ing while it was still dark. Everybody was afraid of being late an d of having to stand in the back rows. If men were required for an unpleasant and disliked job, the senior Capo appeared and usually collected the men he needed from the back rows.These men had to march away to an other, especially dreaded kind of work under the command of strange guards. from time to time the senior Capo chose men from the first five rows, just to catch those who tried to be clever. All protests and entreaties were silenced by a few well-aimed kicks, and the chosen victims were chased to the meeting place with shouts and blows. However, as long as my Capo felt the need of pouring out his heart, this could not happen to me. I had a guaranteed place of honor next to him. But there was another advan- tage, too. Like nearly all the camp inmates I was suffering from edema.My legs were so swollen-headed and the skin on them so tightly stretched that I could scarcely obviate my knees. I had to leave my shoes unlaced in order to make them fit my swollen feet. There woul d not have been space for socks even if I had had any. So my partly bare feet were always wet and my shoes always full of snow. This, of course, caused frostbite and chilblains. Every single step became real torture. Clumps of ice formed on our shoes during our marches over covered fields. Over and again men slipped and those following behind stumbled on top of them. Then the column would stop for a moment, but not for long.One of the guards soon took action and worked over the men with the butt of his rifle to make them get up quickly. The more to the front of the column you were, the less often you were pallid by having to stop and then to make up for lost time by running on your painful feet. I was very happy to be the personally appointed physician to His Honor the Capo, and to march in the first row at an even pace. As an additional earnings for my services, I could be sure that as long as soup was being dealt out at lunchtime at our work site, he would, when my turn came, d ip the ladle right to the bottom of the vat and seek out a few peas.This Capo, a former army officer, even had the courage to whisper to the foreman, whom I had quarreled with, that he knew me to be an unusually good worker. That didnt help matters, but he nevertheless managed to save my life (one of the many times it was to be saved). The day after the epi sode with the foreman he smuggled me into another work party. There were foremen who felt sorry for us and who did their best to ease our situation, at least at the building site. 40 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 41But even they kept on reminding us that an ordinary laborer did several times as much work as we did, and in a shorter time. But they did see reason if they were told that a normal workman did not live on 10-1/2 ounces of bread (theoreticallyactually we often had less) and 1-3/4 pints of thin soup per day that a normal laborer did not live under the mental stress we had to submit to, not having news of our families, who had either been sent to another camp or gassed right away that a normal workman was not threat ened by death continuously, daily and hourly.I even al lowed myself to say once to a kindly foreman, If you could learn from me how to do a brain operation in as short a time as I am learning this road work from you, I would have great respect for you. And he grinned. Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task pre serving ones own life and that of the other fellow. It was typical to hear the prisoners, while they were being herded back to camp from their work sites in the evening, sigh with relief and say, Well, another day is over. It can be readily understood that such a state of strain, bring together with the constant necessity of concentrating on the task of staying alive, forced the prisoners inner life down to a primal level. S everal of my colleagues in camp who were learn in psychoanalysis often spoke of a regression in the camp inmatea retreat to a more primitive form of mental life. His wishes and desires became obvious in his dreams. What did the prisoner dream about most frequently? Of bread, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm baths.The lack of having these simple desires well-to-do led him to seek wishfulfillment in dreams. Whether these dreams did any good is another matter the dreamer had to wake from them to the reality of camp life, and to the terrible contrast between that and his dream illusions. I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from imposing dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man.Suddenly I displace back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to discard him. Because of the high degree of undernourishment which the prisoners suffered, it was natural that the desire for food was the major primitive instinct around which mental life centered. Let us observe the majority of prisoners when they happened to work near each other and were, for once, not closely watched.They would immediately start discuss ing food. One fellow would ask another working next to him in the ditch what his favorite dishes were. Then they would exchange recipes and plan the menu for the day when they would have a reunionthe day in a distant future when they would be emancipate and returned home. They would go on and on, picturing it all in detail, until suddenly a warning was passed down the trench, usually in the form of a special password or number The guard is coming. I always regarded the discussions about food as danger ous.Is it not wrong to provoke the existence with such detailed and affective pictures of delicacies when it has somehow managed to adapt itself to extremely small rations 42 Mans Search for Meaning Experiences in a Concentration Camp 43 and low calories? Though it may afford momentary psycho logical relief, it is an illusion which phy