man-s-search-for-meaning
man-s-search-for-meaning
man-s-search-for-meaning
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MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING<br />
though it were a farewell, not <strong>for</strong> life, but from life.<br />
Slowly I walked back to my hut. There I found a good<br />
friend waiting <strong>for</strong> me.<br />
"You really want to go with them?" he asked sadly.<br />
"Yes, I am going."<br />
Tears came to his eyes and I tried to com<strong>for</strong>t him.<br />
Then there was something else to do - to make my<br />
will:<br />
"Listen, Otto, if I don't get back home to my wife,<br />
and if you should see her again, then tell her that I<br />
talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I<br />
have loved her more than anyone. Thirdly, the short<br />
time I have been married to her outweighs everything,<br />
even all we have gone through here."<br />
Otto, where are you now? Are you alive? What has<br />
happened to you since our last hour together? Did you<br />
find your wife again? And do you remember how I<br />
made you learn my will by heart - word <strong>for</strong> word - in<br />
spite of your childlike tears?<br />
The next morning I departed with the transport.<br />
This time it was not a ruse. We were not heading <strong>for</strong><br />
the gas chambers, and we actually did go to a rest<br />
camp. Those who had pitied me remained in a camp<br />
where famine was to rage even more fiercely than in<br />
our new camp. They tried to save themselves, but they<br />
only sealed their own fates. Months later, after liberation,<br />
I met a friend from the old camp. He related to<br />
me how he, as camp police<strong>man</strong>, had <strong>search</strong>ed <strong>for</strong> a<br />
piece of hu<strong>man</strong> flesh that was missing from a pile of<br />
corpses. He confiscated it from a pot in which he<br />
found it cooking. Cannibalism had broken out. I had<br />
left just in time.<br />
Does this not bring to mind the story of Death in<br />
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