Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything

by Viktor E. Frankl

No one will be surprised to hear that his next thought concerns the question of how best to commit suicide. In fact, everyone in this situation flirts, if only for a moment, with the idea of “running into the wire,” committing suicide, using the usual method in the camp: contact with the high voltage barbed-wire fence. However, he drops his intention at once, simply because it has become more or less pointless; because a suicide attempt is redundant in this situation inasmuch as the average probability of not, sooner or later, going to the gas chamber is in any case minimal. Who needs to run into the wire when he is going into the gas sooner or later? He no longer needs to wish for the “wire” once he has the “gas” to be afraid of, but he no longer needs to fear the “gas” once he has wished for the “wire.”