Book Review (Part One) - Man's Search For Meaning

In ‘Part One’ of this book, Viktor E. Frankl, a professor of neurology and psychiatry, writes about his own lived experiences of the time he spent in concentration camps during World War II. The chapter starts with the moment when author was captured along with hundreds of others and transported to one of the concentration camps to be held captive.

Since I’ve come across this book, I’ve read it multiple times and each time I read this chapter, the rich content reveals something new, unique and it would leave its exceptional impression. It fuels the curiosity to know minds of individuals who were in the camp - guards, the captives who managed to make the cut and the ones who couldn’t.

Human behavior under extreme circumstances

According to the author, there were certain human characteristics that constituted the mindset of survivors to enabled them to adapt and persist the harsh living conditions. Author ascertains his point of view by explaining these characteristics through various events that occurred during his time in the camp. Some of these characteristics that stood out for me from the chapter are listed below.

Hope

Under the circumstances where a captive could not do much to escape but to endure the harsh life and overtly hostile guards, a hope to get free one day kept survivors alive for a long period of time. From the observer standpoint, author describes that the captives who lost hope succumbed to death soon after they relinquished any hope to get free. To further describe the survivors’ behaviour, author coins the term ‘Provisional existence of unknown limit’ to explain captives’ state of existence at the time. Survivors considered their current state of existence to be temporary even though they didn’t know how long it would be. Unaware of what future holds for them, survivors didn’t lose hope to have a future and a free one.

Adaptability

Before captivity, in their normal life, individual who was accustomed to rest on a comfortable mattress and would get disturbed even from a slight creak of the door, was now in the camp in deep sleep. “His fatigued, and entirely depleted body lying on his side using tattered shoes as a pillow could not be disturbed even with the loud snore a few inches away from his ear”. From this observation, author points out that the tremendous adaptability of a human body and how it can be molded according to the surroundings to keep itself alive.?

Delusion of reprieve

Author experienced it firsthand and observed the ‘delusion of reprieve’ among captives as they went through number of selections by camp guards. The illusion that they would be let off eventually. This notion of ‘delusion of reprieve’ can be related to normal life, when one encounters a situation that involves the matter of life or death whether their own or their loved one. It is a human tendency to have an illusion until the very last minute that they would pull through.

Happiness is relative

Famished bodies suffering with frostbite and continuous struggle for their existence, compared their lives with the passing by well-fed prisoners. Author reflects how captives envied passing by prisoners who didn’t have the sword of death hanging over their head, who did not have to make a choice whether to eat bread to stay alive or to trade it so that they can shave their beard to look younger to pass the selection. To captives living in a perpetual state of fear, prisoners seemed to be in better place than them. Although the event depicted here is outside the bounds of normal human experiences and there is no element of happiness here, however, the point was made to explain how our happiness is relative to the happiness of others around us.

Choice

When there wasn’t sufficient bread for themselves, author witnessed some of the captives were distributing their share of bread to others who needed the more. Through this observation, author describes the idea of making a choice to live irrespective of the conditions. An individual can choose their own way and can rise above the situation. On another instance, he observed some of the captives wrapped in torn out clothes, limping their way back to their huts at the end of the day for a respite did find moments of laugh occasionally even if it’s for a split second. The way captives bore sufferings was a testament to the fact that the choice cannot be taken away. By reciting these occurrences, author accentuates the point that a human being can choose one’s demeanour in any given set of circumstances, can choose their own way to reinforce the freedom of their mind from the surroundings.

Captives’ dreams

In their normal life, captives were well renowned in their field of expertise. Mostly, they were considered to be in one of the top three boxes of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Career, and progress were on top of their mind. When they were captured, their identity and any link to their formal life was lost. Soon they found their needs plummeted to basic, the bottom box of the hierarchy – foraging for food, shelter and safety. As years rolled by, war had taken its toll on them pushing them to live primitive life. The author highlights that when basic amenities are not met, and one is in relentless pursuit of it, the dreams and foremost thoughts would usually be of having decent meal and comfort sleep. This is what author experienced firsthand and observed in others too.

For someone who’s lived their whole life in normal settings may not be able to grasp or imagine the depth of captives’ sufferings. However, the lively words in this chapter are weaved together in such a way that it conjures up the imagery in reader’s mind. The setting begins to emerge and secretly find its way to connect with the reader. Although one would follow the chapter from the lens of their own life and experiences, the content surely will fuel your curiosity to know more, explore more, to find evidence of strength, hope, courage, and freedom. Inspired and curious to know more about lives of those affected during the World War II, I continued my reading further with two books listed below:

1.????? The Happiest Man on Earth – By Eddie Jaku

2.????? The Choice – By Edith Eger