![]() ![]() Instead, he playfully picked up a stone and threw it at me. 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. 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. By means of this insensibility the prisoner soon surrounded himself with a very necessary protective shell.īeatings occurred on the slightest provocation, sometimes for no reason at all. Even the gas chambers lost their horrors for him after the first few days - after all, they spared him the act of committing suicide.Īpathy, the blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care anymore, were the symptoms arising during the second stage of the prisoner’s psychological reactions, and which eventually made him insensitive to daily and hourly beatings. The prisoner of Auschwitz, in the first phase of shock, did not fear death. He could not with any assurance expect to be among the small percentage of men who survived all the selections. ![]() There was little point in committing suicide, since, for the average inmate, life expectation, calculating objectively and counting all likely chances, was very poor. It was born of the hopelessness of the situation, the constant danger of death looming over us daily and hourly, and the closeness of the deaths suffered by many of the others. The thought of suicide was entertained by nearly every one, if only for a brief time. The prisoners were only average man, but some at least, by choosing to be “worthy of their suffering” proved man’s capacity to rise above his outward fate. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities ![]() Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. Bat no man can tell another what this purpose is. If there is purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. ![]()
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