Life in the camps

Viktor Frankl was a Viennese psychiatrist who spent much of the Second World War in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz and camps linked to Dachau. His parents, his brother and his wife all died. The first half describes camp life through the inner experience of an ordinary prisoner.

He describes three stages. On arrival came shock, and even a strange hope of being spared. Then came apathy, a numbness that protected prisoners from the daily cruelty around them. After liberation came a third stage, when many found it hard to feel joy and some struggled with bitterness and disappointment.