Worse than death in Nazi concentration camps
The Experience of a Jewish Psychiatrist Who Suffered
The youth edition of "Man's Search for Meaning" has been released, inspiring countless readers around the world!

Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl (1905-1997) was an Austrian-born Jewish psychiatrist and psychologist.
He was working as a psychiatrist in Vienna, Austria, but was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when World War II broke out.
All kinds of insults and beatings, the horrific reality where life and death are decided by a single finger, gas chambers where the smoke of the dead rises like ghosts, people who are naked and starving and think about nothing but food all day long… … .
The brutal Holocaust experience, where people were not treated as human beings and had no human dignity, is vividly and candidly told from the perspective of a survivor who returned from the experience.

This work objectively delves into the depths of humanity as a psychiatrist, examining how the minds and actions of ordinary people change in extreme situations.
It also allows today's youth to vividly experience the history of the Holocaust, one of the most brutal crimes of the 20th century, through true accounts.

Those who have not experienced the camps can easily mistake the atmosphere of life there for sentimentality or pity.
You can't imagine the fierce struggle for survival that took place among the prisoners.
Daily bread and thirst
He fought a bloody battle for his life, to save himself and his beloved friend.
Consider a situation where an announcement is made that some prisoners will be transferred to other camps.
People assume that the final destination will naturally be the gas chambers.
This is because prisoners who are sick or too weak to work are often selected and sent to large camps with gas chambers and crematoriums.
The process of selecting them causes inmates or groups of inmates to fight and fight with each other.
Because you have to somehow erase your name or your friend's name from the list.
Even though they knew full well that saving one person would mean sacrificing another.
The number of people carried was fixed.
All the prisoners had numbers, and each prisoner was nothing more than a number.
So it didn't really matter who was carried.
Upon entering the camp - at least in Auschwitz - all documents identifying the prisoners were confiscated along with their belongings.
So prisoners could give fake names or occupations, and for various reasons, many actually did.
The only thing the camp cared about was the numbers of the people who had been arrested.
The numbers were sometimes tattooed on the prisoners' skin, or embroidered on their trousers, jackets, or coats.
If the guard decided to punish a prisoner, all he had to do was glance at the number.
How terrified he was of that gaze! He never asked for his name.
--- From "A Fight for Survival Without Morality or Ethics"

I often looked up at the sky.
The stars were losing their light one by one, and the light pink that signaled the morning was slowly spreading out from behind the thick dark clouds.
My mind was filled with images of my wife.
I had a very precise picture of my wife in my head.
I heard my wife answer and saw her smile.
I felt my wife's gaze, which seemed sincere and encouraging.
Whether it was true or not, my wife's appearance at that time shone brighter than the sun that was just beginning to rise.
Then a thought crossed my mind.
For the first time in my life, I realized the one truth that so many poets have sung in their poetry and so many thinkers have proclaimed as the highest wisdom.
The truth was that the ultimate and most noble goal that humans can pursue is love.
I have penetrated the sublime secrets of human poetry, thought, and faith, and their meaning.
'Salvation for humanity is realized through love and in love.'
It was then that I realized that even if I had nothing left in this world, I could still feel immense happiness when I thought of my loved ones (even if only for a very brief moment).
Even when one is completely alienated and unable to express oneself, when all one can do is endure the pain given in an appropriate and honorable way, one can still find fulfillment in thinking of the image of the loved one whom one holds dear.
--- From "Thinking of the One You Love"

In any situation, a person can determine his attitude.
A human relationship that ignores this ability is dangerous.
Humans are not determined by conditions, but are beings who can decide for themselves whether to surrender to circumstances or fight against them.
Humans do not simply exist; they live always making judgments about how they will exist in the future and what they will do next.
To continue, humans have the freedom to change at any moment.
All we can guess in advance is what we get from statistical analysis of the behavior of large human groups.
The characteristics of each individual are fundamentally unpredictable.
Any prediction is based on the biological, psychological, and social conditions that are unique to that person.
But one thing that is unique about humans is that they have the ability to overcome and transcend those conditions.
Humans can change the world for the better if possible, and can change themselves for the better if necessary.

--- From "Freedom and Responsibility"