Quotes About Survival

Los supervivientes de los campos aún recordamos a los hombres que iban a los barracones a consolar a los demás, ofreciéndoles su único mendrugo de pan. Quizá no fueron muchos, pero esos pocos son una muestra irrefutable de que al hombre se le puede arrebatar todo, salvo una cosa: la libertad humana —la libre elección de la acción personal ante las circunstancias— para elegir el propio camino.

I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life.

No nos entraba en la cabeza que nos lo quitarían todo, absolutamente todo.

Those who have not gone through a similar experience can hardly conceive of the soul-destroying mental conflict and clashes of will power which a famished man experiences.

lack of sleep, insuffcient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances

Why to live for enabled them to bear the How.

He describes poignantly the prisoners who gave up on life, who had lost all hope for a future and were inevitably the first to die.

men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest – and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances.

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.

We walked slowly along the road leading from the camp. Soon our legs hurt and threatened to buckle. But we limped on; we wanted to see the camp's surroundings for the first time with the eyes of free men. Freedom - we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours.

Pronto, el prisionero construía, gracias a la insensibilidad, un muy necesario escudo protector.

Quienes conocen la estrecha relación entre el estado de ánimo de una persona —su valor y su esperanza, o la falta de ambos— y la capacidad de su sistema inmunológico comprenderán que la pérdida repentina de esperanza puede desencadenar un desenlace mortal. La

A man counted only because he had a prison number. One literally became a number: dead or alive—that was unimportant; the life of a "number" was completely irrelevant.

Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben." (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering

Nietzsche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could

Even if things take such a good in one of a thousand cases, who can guarantee that in your case it will not happen one day, sooner or later? But in the first place, you have to survive in order to see that day dawn, and from now on the responsibility for survival does not leave you.

No nos gusta hablar de nuestras experiencias. Los supervivientes no necesitamos ninguna explicación. Y los demás no comprenderían cómo nos sentíamos en el campo y cómo nos sentimos ahora».

What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from

There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how

loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

A man who looks miserable, down and out, sick and emaciated, and who cannot manage hard physical labor any longer … that is a 'Moslem.' Sooner or later, usually sooner, every 'Moslem' goes to the gas chambers. Therefore, remember: shave, stand and walk smartly; then you need not be afraid of gas

But it is not for me to pass judgment on those prisoners who put their own people above everyone else. Who can throw a stone at a man who favours his friends under circumstances when, sooner or later, it is a question of life or death? No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.