Meaning Page 5
FRANKL: He could not answer because he was a reductionist.
End of Scene 14
Act II
Scene 15
The Size of Human Suffering
Title Board: THE SIZE OF HUMAN SUFFERING
De-lousing. No chimney!
Frankl; Colleague
Visual: Standing outside in the rain. Camp crematorium. Three photos showing delousing behind a back-lit sheet. Ladling soup.
Stage Directions: Match visuals to dialogue. Delousing via a series of slides.
FRANKL: Aman’s suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas which will completely fill any size of empty container. Suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind. Therefore, the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.
Crematorium.
Source: Hartmann, E. (1995). In the Camps.
COLLEAGUE: From the loss of a favorite pet to that of a loved one.
FRANKL: Yes. It follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys. We were being moved from Auschwitz and were all afraid that the destination was the Mauthausen camp. You cannot possibly imagine the dance of joy performed in the carriage by the prisoners when we realized we were “only” heading for Dachau!
COLLEAGUE: Only Dachau!
FRANKL: When we arrived the first important news was that this comparatively small camp—only two thousand five hundred—had no “oven,” no crematorium, no gas! Aperson who became a “Moslem” would have to wait to be returned to Auschwitz to be killed. We laughed and cracked jokes.
COLLEAGUE: It was not all jokes.
FRANKL: One of our members was missing and we had to stand all night and into the next morning, outside, frozen and soaked to the skin. Yet we were all very pleased—no chimney!
COLLEAGUE: It was all relative.
FRANKL: We envied convicts who had it much better than us. We longed for a factory job in a sheltered room. All of the outside work parties were different. Some foremen maintained a tradition of dealing out numerous blows. I was once in such a group and was saved by an air-raid alarm which made it necessary to regroup the workers.
COLLEAGUE: You were saved by many such strange happenings.
FRANKL: We were grateful for the smallest of mercies like enough time to delouse before going to bed.
COLLEAGUE: How was that done?
FRANKL: It meant standing naked in an unheated hut where icicles hung from the ceiling. If there were no air-raid alarm, we had light for this. Otherwise, we were kept awake half the night by the lice.
Janina Tollik: “Punishment Parade” (Oil). Source: Poznanski, S. (1963). Struggle, Death, Memory. 1939–1945.
COLLEAGUE: Tell me more.
FRANKL: A small thing, but it was a cherished pleasure. There was one prisoner-cook who dealt out the soup equally—a remarkable thing. I was in his line for a while.
COLLEAGUE: He didn’t help his friends.
FRANKL: True. But it is not for me to pass judgment on those who did. No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
COLLEAGUE: You mean, who can question a man who favors his friends when sooner or later it is a question of life and death?
FRANKL: Yes.
End of Scene 15
Scene 16
Art in a Concentration Camp
Title Board: ART IN A CONCENTRATION CAMP?
Theater and music
Colleague; Frankl
Visual: Photo of camp entertainment: someone singing, doing stand-up comedy, playing a violin, reciting, soup tureen on a well-laid-out table in color in a home.
Stage Directions: Match visuals to dialogue, ending with a modern table setting with a soup tureen. Underscore with sounds of singing, laughter, monologue, violin.
COLLEAGUE: Is there such a thing as art in a concentration camp?
FRANKL: A kind of cabaret was improvised from time to time.
COLLEAGUE: Where?
FRANKL: A hut was cleared temporarily. Some benches were pushed or nailed together and a program drawn up.
COLLEAGUE: Who came?
FRANKL: Those who had good positions in the camp: Capos and the workers who did not have to leave camp on distant marches. They came together to laugh or cry, anyway, to forget.
COLLEAGUE: Who performed?
FRANKL: Anyone who wanted to. There were songs, poems, jokes, some with underlying satire regarding the camp. They helped us forget and were so effective that many ordinary prisoners attended even though they were fatigued or missed a meal.
COLLEAGUE: Quite remarkable.
FRANKL: At our half-hour lunch breaks with soup provided by the contractor there was sometimes a special treat.
COLLEAGUE: Other than the thin watery soup?
FRANKL: There was a prisoner who climbed on a tub and sang Italian arias. We enjoyed the songs, and he was guaranteed a double helping of soup, straight “from the bottom”—that meant with peas!
COLLEAGUE: So there were short times when music was in your lives. In such a setting!
FRANKL: Generally speaking, any pursuit of art in camp was somewhat grotesque. But you might be even more astonished to learn that one could find a sense of humor there as well. Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.
COLLEAGUE: Humor in that place? Can you give me an example?
FRANKL: I practically trained a friend to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, but this story had to be about some incident that could happen after our liberation.
COLLEAGUE: Yes.
FRANKL: One such was a future dinner engagement when he would forget himself when the soup was served, and beg the hostess to ladle it “from the bottom”!
End of Scene 16
Scene 17
Decisions and Escape
Title Board: MAKING DECISIONS
Escaping?
Colleague; Frankl; Man
Visual: Camp, fences, world seen through fences, trucks driving out of camp, Red Cross car, a beat-up rucksack, three corpses.
Stage Directions: Coordinate slides and dialogue. Some birdsong in the background. Car and truck noises.
COLLEAGUE: Did you ever try to escape?
FRANKL: That’s an interesting question. You see, the camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever.
Camp.
Source: Frankl, V.E. (1997). Viktor Frankl Recollections. An Autobiography.
Camp Wire.
Source: Hartmann, E. (1995). In the Camps.
COLLEAGUE: Why was that?
FRANKL: Well, this was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one’s master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way. In addition, there was a great apathy.
COLLEAGUE: But you still thought of escape?
FRANKL: Yes. The decision had to be a lightning one. Great torments assailed the inmate—should he take the risk?
COLLEAGUE: And?
FRANKL: As the battle front grew nearer, a colleague of mine invited me to join him for a pretended consultation outside the fence. This patient needed a specialist’s advice.
COLLEAGUE: But you didn’t escape then.
FRANKL: The resistance fighter never showed up and there were some other difficulties. We had to return to the camp.
COLLEAGUE: Were you disappointed?
FRANKL: Yes and no. This gave us an opportunity to break into an empty hut in the women’s camp. My friend found a rucksack. There were other items. Bowls were very useful, but we couldn’t tell whether they had been used as toilets.
COLLEAGUE: You were still thinking of escape.
FRANKL: Of course. So I ran back to my hut to collect all my possessions: my food bowl, a pair of torn mittens “inherited” from a dead typhus patient, and a few scraps of shorthand notes for my book. I made a last quick round of my patients and came to my only countr
yman, who was almost dying. It was my ambition to save his life.
MAN: You, too, are getting out doctor?
FRANKL: No. No. I just need to check the other patients.
MAN: I understand.
FRANKL: He gave me such a hopeless look. Suddenly, I decided to take fate in my own hands for once. I had an unhappy feeling.
COLLEAGUE: What did you do?
FRANKL: I ran out of the hut and told my friend I could not go with him. As soon as I told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before.
MAN: Thank you for staying and being with me.
FRANKL: Thank you, my friend.
COLLEAGUE: You were now close to liberation.
FRANKL: Our last day in camp arrived. Mass transports had taken nearly all the prisoners to other camps, and the Capos and cooks had fled. We got orders to evacuate completely by sunset, and then they closed the gates, locking us in. My friend and I were to bury three men outside the barbed wire—we were the only two in the camp who had strength enough to do the job.
COLLEAGUE: You had a plan?
FRANKL: With the first body we would smuggle out the rucksack in the old laundry tub that served as a coffin. With the second body we would take out my rucksack. On the third trip we would escape. After the second trip I waited and waited for my friend to come back with a scrap of bread. But we did not get that far.
COLLEAGUE: What happened?
FRANKL: At the very moment my friend came back, the camp gates were thrown open. A delegate from the International Red Cross in Geneva had arrived in a splendid aluminum-colored car, painted with large red crosses. We were now under his protection.
COLLEAGUE: No more need to escape!
FRANKL: Boxes of medicine were unloaded from the car, cigarettes were distributed, we were photographed, and joy reigned supreme.
U.S. forces at Ohrdruf concentration camp. General Eisenhower can be seen in the front row, third from the left. Photo by Harold Royall.
Source: Zelizer, B. (2000). Visual Culture and The Holocaust.
COLLEAGUE: What about the third body?
FRANKL: We buried that now in the shallow grave with the other two. The guard even joined us in our short prayers. The words of our prayer asking for peace were as fervent as any ever uttered by the human voice.
COLLEAGUE: So, you were now free.
FRANKL: No. We had rejoiced too early. That night the SS arrived with trucks and an order to clear the camp. We were to be taken to a central camp and then to Switzerland to exchange for some prisoners of war.
COLLEAGUE: But you didn’t go!
FRANKL: Let me finish. The SS were strange—they were so friendly, persuading us to get in the trucks without fear. We openly had our rucksacks with us. At the last truck, the chief doctor left us out, and we had to stay behind.
COLLEAGUE: Fate again.
Corpses.
Source: Frankl, V.E. (1997). Viktor Frankl Recollections. An Autobiography.
FRANKL: We waited a long time. The next morning there was gunfire. The battle front had reached us. Outside the camp gate was a white flag on a pole. Fate was certainly with us. Our friends in the trucks were taken to a small camp nearby, locked into huts, and burned to death. Why was I saved again?
End of Scene 17
Scene 18
Faith in the Future
Title Board: FAITH IN THE FUTURE—HOPE AND …
Frankl speaks in the hut
Colleague; Frankl
Visual: Camp scenes, suicide on the wire. Slide stating, “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.” Another slide stating, “That which does not kill me, makes me stronger—Nietzsche.”
Stage Directions: Integrate visuals with dialogue, especially the two quotes.
COLLEAGUE: You were living in the moment, in the present all of the time. What was time like for you?
FRANKL: Our time sense was distorted. In camp a day filled with its hourly tortures and fatigue appeared endless. Alarger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. My comrades agreed when I said that in camp a day lasted longer than a week.
COLLEAGUE: What about the future?
FRANKL: Let me tell you a story about the day when I was almost in tears from the pain from the sores on my feet. I limped a few kilometers in a cold bitter wind. My thoughts circulated on the endless little problems of our miserable life.
COLLEAGUE: You were obsessed with the trivia of survival.
FRANKL: I became disgusted and forced myself to turn to another subject.
COLLEAGUE: Yes?
FRANKL: Suddenly, I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm, and pleasant lecture room. In front of me sat an attentive audience on comfortable upholstered seats. I was giving a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp!
COLLEAGUE: A daydream that became a reality.
FRANKL: All that oppressed me at that moment became objective, seen and described from the remote viewpoint of science. By this method I succeeded somehow in rising above the situation, above the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were already in the past.
COLLEAGUE: Dissociation under stress is not uncommon.
FRANKL: Don’t trivialize. This was real. Both I and my troubles became the object of an interesting psychoscientific study undertaken by myself. Did not Spinoza say, “Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it”?
COLLEAGUE: You transcended the moment.
FRANKL: You see, the prisoner who lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold.
COLLEAGUE: This became a veritable death sentence.
FRANKL: And it came on very quickly. We feared these well-known symptoms in our friends. No entreaties had any effect after this crisis. They simply gave up.
COLLEAGUE: Wasn’t there a sudden increase in the death rate?
FRANKL: The week between Christmas 1944 and New Year’s 1945 showed an exceptional death rate. The majority of prisoners had lived in the naïve hope that they would be home again by Christmas. As the time grew near with no encouraging news, they lost courage, their resistance decreased, and they died.
COLLEAGUE: The incredible power of hope and hopelessness.
FRANKL: Nietzsche’s words were prophetic: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, no point in carrying on.
COLLEAGUE: He was soon lost.
FRANKL: We had to learn ourselves and we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
COLLEAGUE: You had to stop asking about the meaning of life, but instead think of yourselves as those being questioned by life—moment by moment.
FRANKL: Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems, and to fulfill the different tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
COLLEAGUE: Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness.
FRANKL: When a man finds it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his single and unique task. We had to realize the hidden opportunities of this suffering.
COLLEAGUE: All of that suffering, and especially the hopelessness, the being out of control, must have led to a lot of suicide as a means of escape. I mean, this was an act under their control.
FRANKL: There was a very strict camp ruling that forbade any efforts to save a man who attempted suicide. It was forbidden, for example, to cut down a man who was trying to hang himself.
COLLEAGUE: Less work for the guards.
FRANKL: You see, our efforts were to prevent the suicide from occurring.
CO
LLEAGUE: How did you do that?
FRANKL: I can think of two cases of would-be suicide. Both men talked about their intentions. It was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something of them.
COLLEAGUE: You mean, something in their future was expected of them.
FRANKL: Yes. For one we found that it was his child, whom he adored, and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other it was a thing, not a person. He was a scientist who still needed to complete a series of books—and no one else could do this work.
COLLEAGUE: Dreams and visions.
FRANKL: We are all unique. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. Once a man realizes that, he cannot throw his life away.
COLLEAGUE: So you struggled on.
Camp Wire.
Source: Hartmann, E. (1995). In the Camps.
FRANKL: One day, we, all two thousand five hundred of us, had chosen a day of fasting rather than give up a man who had stolen a few pounds of potatoes. On the evening of the day of fasting we lay in our earthen huts—in a very low mood. To make matters even worse, the light went out. But our senior block warden was a wise man. He improvised a little talk. He talked about the many comrades who had died in the past few days, either of sickness or of suicide. He also mentioned what may have been the real reason for their deaths: giving up hope. Then he asked me to speak, to give some advice about preventing possible future victims from reaching this extreme state. I was very tired, yet I spoke of the present—things could be worse, yet we had lost little that was irretrievable. We could rebuild health, happiness, family, professional abilities, fortune, position in society. After all, we still had our bones intact. I quoted from Nietzsche, “Was mich nicht umbringt, Macht mich starker.”