Man's Search for Meaning 9/20 pg.43-93

Summary: It was only his second night at the camp and he was thinking about his wife because it was her birthday and he couldn't be with her. Frankl explains how he taught a friend how to have a sense of humor. He explained how important it was to have some kind of humor in order to get through the days in the camps. When they got taken to Dachau they thought it was going to be a lot worse but then they realized there was no "ovens", crematoriums, gas and no chimneys. That was a relief for them all. It was better than Auschwitz because there was chimneys there. The men envied each other for the different jobs that they had, some men even considered themselves lucky.  Frankl says, "No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same." When they were sick they were able to take breaks in the hut, they would all gather around for body warmth. The prisoners in the camps were really happy just to get a little piece of bread and some soup. The men in the camps were herded just like sheep. They lost their self-respect and descended to animal level. The prisoners in the camps wanted to be alone, they craved solitude. Frankl was trying to help patients but then he became weak and exhausted from a serious attack of typhus. The prisoners in the camps became nothing but a number, it didn't matter if they were dead or alive. The prisoners were separated in groups and Frankl said that he was a doctor, but he still got moved around a lot. Frankl wrote a will, and in the will he just talked about his wife and how much he loved his wife. He wanted to make sure that his wife knew that he loved her more than anything. The prisoners were so desperate that they started eating the human flesh off the dead corpse. He attempted to escape from the camp but it wasn't successful so he returned. The second time he was going to escape he decided not to because he wanted to stay and help his patients. As soon as he decided not to leave he said that he felt an inward peace that he had not felt before. The negative feeling that he felt had gone away. People then tried to escape but it was still pretty difficult to escape. Prisoners felt utterly degraded.

Comment: Reading all this makes me have manny different emotions. I can not even imagine being in this situation, I would never want to know what it feels like to be completely separated from my family. I also do not want to know what it feels like to be completely robbed from my identity. It would be very hard to see myself as just a number, I would not be able to handle being so dehumanized. I would do all that I could in order to escape from the camps. I would think day and night of ways to get out of the camp. I would also try to find a way to get others out of the camps as well.The camps are such a terrible place to be. I don't know if I would be able to turn down an opportunity if it meant potentially getting out of the camps. So for Frankl to do that was very brave in my opinion. Although Frankl was going through a lot in the camps all he was able to think about was his wife, and that to me means a lot. He had so much love toward his wife and he wanted to make sure that she knew how much he loved her. This is true love and care, he didn't even want to think about his wife suffering or having to go through the things that he went through. This was a very good part of this book.