We all interpret our lives in individual ways, Our experiences and even our current situations play a role In how we interpret our existence. How we perceive ourselves in extremely stressful situations can greatly affect our own well-being. How concentration camp prisoners Interpreted their circumstances affected if they survived or not. Many of the prisoners had to strike out their entire former lives. This was due to how abruptly their lives had changed. They now based their days on when and if they eat, the manual labor required of them, and if they could sleep or not. Always in the back of their minds was the fear of the gas chambers. The inmates had to except the fact that they were in a seemingly hopeless situation. There was always a constant danger of death looming over them. Over time. a prisoner’s emotions dulled. Fiankl described a scene were he worked in a hut with typhus patients’ “After one of them had lust died, I watched without any emotional upset the scene that followed. which was repeated over and over again with each death.”
Prisoners had to overcome the reality of death and use to their advantage. After a person died, many inmates ravaged the body for anything that could prolong their own existence. Frankl stated, “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. preservmg ones’ own life and that of the other fellow.” The maiority of prisoners had to concentrate on just saving their own skin. This led to a total disregard of anything not sewing that purpose, “This explained the prisoner’s complete lack of sentiment.” explained Frankl. A man in a concentration camp was in a constant state of mental confusion that threatened all the values that he held. “If the man in the concentration camp did not struggle against this in a last effort to save his self- respect. he lost the feeling of being an individual, a being mind. with inner freedom and personal value,” If this occurred. his surVival in the camp would not be long.
Prisoners had to imagine the beauty of people or events in their past lives in order to transcend their current situation. Frankl perceived his soul transcending from the prisoner’s existence to another world. “The intensification of inner life helped the prisoner to find refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence. by letting him escape into the past.” The men even tried to let their minds wonder and get lost in the beauty of the Bavarian landscape. Frankl explained that as the inner life of a prisoner became more intense his experienced the beauty of nature and art as never before. “Under their influence he sometimes even forgot his own frightful circumstances.” Men would point out to one another a beautiful sunset. or the setting sun shinning through the trees. In a place of disgust and total disregard for humanity. this was their great escape from reality.
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One prisoner once said to another. “How beautiful the world could bel” The majority of prisoners suffered from an inferiority complex. “We all had once been or fancied ourselves to be “somebody. Now we were treated like complete nonentities,” stated Frankl. The prisoners were lust a number. The history and life of a prisoner was unimportant now. “Dead or alive was unimportant; the life of a “number” was completely unimportant.” This had devastating results on the ego and self-esteem of one‘s self. Although even in the most extreme circumstances, one still has a choice of action. Apathy is suppressible even in its most severe form. “A man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom. of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress,” Examples of this were rare but in some instances, a prisoner would comfort others and even give away their last piece of bread.
Everything could be taken away from a man except his choice of attitude. In any given circumstances, a person has the choice to interpret how something will affect him. There were many choices made in the life of a concentration camp prison, Many of which greatly affect if he sun/ived or not. In such a brutal enwronment. a person is bound to react in certain ways. It is up to the person to decide hoW these circumstances Will affect his general attitude. “The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not the result of camp influences alone.” Although the prisoners could not control what happened to them physically the camps could never decide what became of him mentally and spiritually.
The way in which he accepts his fate and his sufferings Will greatly affect the outcome of his Circumstances. This Will also determine if he is worthy of his sufferings or not Frank! tells a story about a woman who knew that she was going to die very soon‘ “I am grateful that fate has hIt me so hard.” she told me “In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” Once someone has except his or her fate, they have reached a level of spirituality far beyond many. To except ones fate is to realize the importance of all of life‘s circumstances. “Everywhere man is confronted with fate. with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering Frankl.
