Apathy, the main symptom of the second phase, was a
necessary mechanism of self-defense. Reality dimmed, and
all efforts and all emotions were centered on one task: pre­
serving one's own life and that of the other fellow. It was
typical to hear the prisoners, while they were being herded
back to camp from their work sites in the evening, sigh with
relief and say, "Well, another day is over."
It can be readily understood that such a state of strain,
coupled with the constant necessity of concentrating on the
task of staying alive, forced the prisoner's inner life down
to a primitive level. Several of my colleagues in camp
who were trained in psychoanalysis often spoke of a
"regression" in the camp inmate—a retreat to a more
primitive form of mental life. His wishes and desires
became obvious in his dreams.
What did the prisoner dream about most frequently? Of
bread, cake, cigarettes, and nice warm baths. The lack of
having these simple desires satisfied led him to seek wish-
fulfillment in dreams. Whether these dreams did any good is another matter; the dreamer had to wake from them to the reality of camp life, and to the terrible contrast between that and his dream illusions.

 Hiding his mouth behind his upturned collar, the man
 marching next to me whispered suddenly: "If our wives
 could see us now! I do hope they are better off in their
 camps and don't know what is happening to us."
    That brought thoughts of my own wife to mind. And
as we stumbled on for miles, slipping on icy spots, support­
ing each other time and again, dragging one another up
and onward, nothing was said, but we both knew: each of
us was thinking of his wife. Occasionally I looked at the sky,
where the stars were fading and the pink light of the morn­
ing was beginning to spread behind a dark bank of clouds.
But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with
an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her
smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her
look was then more luminous than the sun which was be­
ginning to rise.
    A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I
saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, pro­
claimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth
 
 —that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief mo­ment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in posi­tive action, when his only achievement may consist in en­during his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way— in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual                                                            contemplation of an infinite glory."