Man's Search For Meaning - Viktor E. Frankl

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANINGthan one good reason was known as "The MurderousCapo." This is how it happened. One evening I had thegreat honor of being invited again to the room wherethe spiritualistic seance had taken place. There weregathered the same intimate friends of the chief doctorand, most illegally, the warrant officer from the sanitationsquad was again present. The Murderous Capoentered the room by chance, and he was asked torecite one of his poems, which had become famous (orinfamous) in camp. He did not need to be asked twiceand quickly produced a kind of diary from which hebegan to read samples of his art. I bit my lips till theyhurt in order to keep from laughing at one of his lovepoems, and very likely that saved my life. Since I wasalso generous with my applause, my life might havebeen saved even had I been detailed to his workingparty to which I had previously been assigned for oneday - a day that was quite enough for me. It wasuseful, anyway, to be known to The Murderous Capofrom a favorable angle. So I applauded as hard as Icould.Generally speaking, of course, any pursuit of art incamp was somewhat grotesque. I would say that thereal impression made by anything connected with artarose only from the ghostlike contrast between theperformance and the background of desolate camplife. I shall never forget how I awoke from the deepsleep of exhaustion on my second night in Auschwitz- roused by music. The senior warden of the huthad some kind of celebration in his room, which wasnear the entrance of the hut. Tipsy voices bawledsome hackneyed tunes. Suddenly there was a silenceand into the night a violin sang a desperately sad62