Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

This book is about the author himself who was imprisoned in Auschwitz, a camp where the Jewish were taken to, and were forced to do hard labor. As a psychologist, he could analyze what happened to the mind of the people imprisoned, and tell it in a story. He said that, in such an extreme situation where you are suffering from hard work and are being undernourished, and can be dragged to the gas room anytime if you weren't fit to do hard labor, you can feel curiosity, about whether you can survive for another day.

As a psychologist, he observed the behaviors of the workers as they lived painfully. He wrote that, even in an abject situation, a form of art could be developed. He saw the workers gather in a small building and dance, sharing what's left of their food. He also found the workers joking about what their foremen said, and imagining about outside life.

In 1944, one of his fellow workers said that the war would end by the end of March.

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However, when the end of March came, the war did not end. Then, he lost all hope, and died a short time later. Also, when Christmas came, there was a great increase of death rate among the workers. Many of them hoped that the war would end and they would be spending time in their home on Christmas. The war was still ongoing, and a lot of people lost the will to live. The author wrote that this was not due to the change of climate or food, but the change of the workers' minds.

He wrote that when a person has his own reason to live, he will survive in any extreme situation. However, when he loses that, he would collapse immediately.

The book is a peculiar one, because it was not written by a Jew who deeply hated the Nazi, but a psychologist who contemplated about the change that happened to the workers in the concentration camp. The end might be a little boring, but I think that this book is valuable enough to be read by many people.