Man's Search for Meaning

Frankl and his fellow prisoners lived for years on a starvation diet while engaged in hard labor. They thought, talked and fantasized endlessly about food.

They knew that food meant survival so they became accustomed to rationing their meager portions scrupulously. Frankl explains, “Those who have not gone through a similar experience can hardly conceive of the soul-destroying mental conflict and clashes of willpower which a famished man experiences. They can hardly grasp what it means to stand digging in a trench, listening for the siren to announce 9:30 or 10:00 A.M—the half-hour lunch interval [...] and tenderly touching a piece of bread in one’s coat pocket, first stroking it with frozen gloveless fingers, then breaking off a crumb and putting it in one’s mouth and finally, with the last bit of will power, pocketing it again, having promised oneself that morning to hold out till afternoon” (31).

As a psychotherapist, Frankl was concerned that his fellow prisoners spent too much time imagining food they wished they had or hoped to have at the end of the war. He felt it interfered with their ability to cope with their reality.

Frankl himself obsessed about food like all the others. He also had the good fortune to get a little extra nutrition occasionally: “As an additional payment for my services, I could be sure that as long as soup was being dealt out at lunchtime at our work site, he would, when my turn came up, dip the ladle right to the bottom of the vat and fish out a few peas” (26-27). This was very helpful over time at keeping Frankl fit for work and therefore alive.