In & (hide)out

Two books, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, share firsthand accounts of atrocities committed against Jews in the Nazi regime.

I have read both of these books three times so far, not because I didn't understand the history of the Holocaust, but because I loved the stories of perseverance and human grit displayed by both authors. Often in life, we find ourselves in a situation and think that other situations must be better. However, this belief may shatter once we hear the accounts and stories of other situations or gain a top-level neutral viewpoint.

Just to set the context, Anne Frank and her family spent years in hiding to avoid being captured by the Nazi police or Gestapo and confined into concentration camps or subjected to execution in gas chambers. The diary she wrote contains accounts of her life in hiding. Whereas Viktor Frankl was captured by the Nazis and spent years of his life in different concentration camps, including the most horrifying one at Auschwitz. Upon surviving life there and being released post-war, he wrote about his experiences and those of his fellow Jews in the concentration camps.

There are moments when Anne and her family think that living in hiding for days, months, and years is the worst human experience because day in and day out they live in fear of being caught, relying on the mercy of friends for supplies, and having no clue when it will all end. She occasionally thinks that perhaps being imprisoned in the camp would provide more mental space and certainty about life and death.

But on the other hand, Viktor, barely surviving his life in the camp, had to fight his own set of uncertainties and cruelties thrown at him. Not knowing when he or one of his mates would be put into the gas chamber next or unsure how his beloved wife must be surviving, if he would ever get to see her or not. All of these things kept the camp inmates, including him, in the worst human fear day in and day out. He must have thought that if he had managed to hide somehow, then life would have been less painful. But Anne's experience tells us that is not the case.

Still, both of them held onto some purpose, a dearest meaning in their lives, which made them persevere and show the utmost human grit possible. Viktor even wrote, "Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how'." Anne lived her life and fought the odds in pursuit of her hopes that someday all of this war and crisis would be over, and she would live in freedom, pursue the things she wanted, become an actress, create more good values in the world with her works, and rejoice in life with friends and a larger family. Whereas Viktor had the purpose of meeting his wife again and living a beautiful life, and making a wonderful family with her. He dreamed of serving humanity as a psychologist and therapist. These pursuits kept them battling against all odds, never losing hope, and fighting for survival in the face of death.

In the end, I will quote Anne as she says, "It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." And Viktor says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."