Summary: Frankl is writing this book to show us how everyday life was for him and others in the concentration camps. He originally wanted to just write the book anonymously just using his prisoner number but that would make the book lose half of its value. When they had arrived to the camps they were separated to two sides, the left and right side. Those who were pointed to the left would be sent to the crematorium and those who were pointed to the right were lucky enough to live another day. Frankl was fortunately sent to the right. Families were separated, and even the children were sent to the 'baths' and crematoriums. Everyone slept together on the broads, there was only two blankets shared between nine men. Some advice they were given to stay alive was to stay looking young. Stay shaved and clean, they had to shave even if it was with a piece of glass . The children worked in the snow without any shoes on, their toes had become frostbitten. Frankl explained how the dying and the dead stopped moving affecting him because after just a few weeks at the camps he was used to it. When the men died Frankl just watched a as people came and took stuff off of the dead body, shoes, clothes, etc. He started to lose emotions, he sipped his soup as he watched the dead corpse leave the room. One day as Frankl was working on the railroad he decided to take a little breath, and right when he did that the guard turned around. He explains that he wasn't beat by the guard, the guard only threw a stone at him. But this hurt Frankl even more than actually getting beat because he felt that he was being treated as less than an animal. Frankl explained to us how one night a fellow prisoner was having a terrible dream, but he decided it would be better to let him have a terrible dream than wake him up to the reality of the camps. The prisoners were just given the basic amount of food to live.
Comment : There aren't enough words to describe how I felt after reading some of this stuff. It is unbelievable to me how inhumane they were towards the prisoners. It isn't fair that they had to go through the things that they went through. I think the part that affected me the most was reading about the children and the way they were treated. If I were ever put in this position I don't know what I would do. I can not even think about my family being taken away from me. My family is the most important thing to me and if that was taken away from me I don't think I would be able to continue living on with my life. In Frankl's situation it is very hard to decide what the wrong and right thing is to do. Everyone is trying to live to see the next day and maybe the only way to do that was by taking things away from the dead corpse. If that was the only way I could stay alive I can't say that I wouldn't do the same thing. It is very sad to think about but all of the prisoners were put in a very hard situation. My favorite part of this section in the book had to be at the end when the prisoners were looking up at the sunset. A prisoner said, "How beautiful the world could be." This is very true even today in our world. There are a lot of things going on that should be changed.
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