Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

EXPERIENCES IN A CONCENTRATION CAMPcharge of the new arrivals and their luggage, includingscarce items and smuggled jewelry. Auschwitz musthave been a strange spot in this Europe of the lastyears of the war. There must have been unique treasuresof gold and silver, platinum and diamonds, notonly in the huge storehouses but also in the hands ofthe SS.Fifteen hundred captives were cooped up in a shedbuilt to accommodate probably two hundred at themost. We were cold and hungry and there was notenough room for everyone to squat on the bareground, let alone to lie down. One five-ounce piece ofbread was our only food in four days. Yet 1 heard thesenior prisoners in charge of the shed bargain with onemember of the receiving party about a tie-pin made ofplatinum and diamonds. Most of the profits wouldeventually be traded for liquor - schnapps. I do notremember any more just how many thousands ofmarks were needed to purchase the quantity ofschnapps required for a "gay evening," but I do knowthat those long-term prisoners needed schnapps. Undersuch conditions, who could blame them for tryingto dope themselves? There was another group of prisonerswho got liquor supplied in almost unlimitedquantities by the SS: these were the men who wereemployed in the gas chambers and crematoriums, andwho knew very well that one day they would berelieved by a new shift of men, and that they wouldhave to leave their enforced role of executioner andbecome victims themselves.Nearly everyone in our transport lived under theillusion that he would be reprieved, that everythingwould yet be well. We did not realize the meaning29