What did life mean to the millions of people who awaited their death in Hitler’s concentration camps? Any day, not too distant, they could be gassed to death. Their bodies might end up in a corpse factory [ Kadaververwertungsanstalt] that converted human body fat into glycerine and soap. Becoming toilet soap cannot be the meaning of anyone’s life. What did life mean to Hitler himself and his accomplices who ran the camps? Murdering millions of people cannot render anyone’s life meaningful. Hitler saw himself as the saviour of Germany. Eliminating the Jews was part of his messianic mission. The mission was the meaning of life for Hitler. But what about his victims? Viktor Frankl was one of Hitler’s victims. His mother, wife and brother were murdered by the Nazis. Frankl survived the horrors and brutalities of the camps and wrote the celebrated book, Man’s Search for Meaning . Meaning is what makes life bearable even in a concentration camp, even in the face of death. Even suffe
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