Never throw away a life

In the Nazi death camps there were very strict rules forbidding efforts to save a prisoner who attempted suicide.

It was forbidden to cut down a man who was trying to hang himself. For Victor Frankl it was all-important to prevent these attempts from occurring.

Two cases of would-be suicide bore a striking similarity to each other. Both men had talked of their intentions to commit suicide.

Both used the typical argument that they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them, something in the future was expected of them.

For one, it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country. For the other, it was a thing, not a person.

This man was a scientist and had written a series of books that still needed to be finished. His work couldn’t be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child’s affections.

Anyone who becomes conscious of the responsibility they bear toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away their life.