What Does Man's Search For Meaning Mean

The torture of millions of people in concentration camps was done with ruthlessness and without meaning. Millions of people were killed mechanically, on a schedule. Those who survived had to find a purpose in their lives in order to continue living. This is the lead subject in Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The dehumanization of prisoners made the ability to continue through these atrocities painfully difficult. A fervid symbol in Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, is Frankl’s assigned number, 119,104, as it shows the dehumanization of the prisoners and a stripping away of meaning. From the beginning of Frankl’s journey, the stripping of any meaning is shown through the destruction of identity. Morality is soon destroyed as well, with such things as the Capos showing their barbarism in camp life without sympathy towards their fellow prisoners. Lastly, the lack of any emotion towards those dying in the camp is experienced even by the prisoners themselves. The things that make people human are slowly ripped away throughout the camp experience. Following his arrival at the camp, Frankl found that all sense of identity, and significance with it, was replaced by a number. Frankl states, “It did not really matter which, since each of

Frankl states, “After one of them had just died, I watched without any emotional upset the scene that followed, which was repeated over and over again with each death” (22). Frankl then describes other prisoners taking any items of use from the freshly dead body. The lack of apathy, Frankl’s self proclaimed second stage of camp life, is strongly shown here. Prisoners’ numbers left them detached from their former lives, changing their actions and emotions. Most normal people would show some sort of upset with the death of others around them, but the inmates were no longer people, they were numbers, husks of their former