Survival in Nazi concentration camp.

The year is 1945. The Allied troops had smashed through German defence lines and are liberating Eastern Europe in their final push into Hitler's fortress. As the Allied troops advanced, they found scores of Nazi concentration camps where Jews and some minority groups are imprisoned, tortured and killed. Although many of those inmates had died, many others survived to bear witness as one of the biggest human tragedy in history. Through the survivors, we are able to understand the hardships they went through.

Lack of basic necessities like food, water and shelter are just one of the obstacles these occupants of the concentration camp had to go through. Above all, they had to suffer from the constant abuse by their German captors. Beatings, kickings, hard labours and even raping in broad daylight was the norm in the concentration camps. On hindshight, we know that many millions of people have died. yet, there are those who survived to tell their part of the story in the camps which led me to consider this question; why are these people able to survive in such harsh conditions?

Recent documentary film shown by Discovery channel protraying the life in Nazi camp brought out a very important factor. One of the ex prisoner named John (not his real name) was interviewed and has mentioned the following;

Many people came in the 1st few days are able to endure the abuse. However, as time goes by, they get weaker and weaker. I was lucky to have a group of friends who look after me. We formed somewhat like a close knitted group and will look out for each other. We kept encouraging each other not to give up and prayed for an Allied victory. We firmly believed that though the devils (Germans) can imprison our body, they can't lock our spirits and God will one day rescue us from this awful place. However, there are others who simpily give up and just waited for death. Nearing the end of war, our whole camp was swept by an epidemic. I was one of those prisoners being taken to a room to be left to die. Separated from my friends. I knew I had to depend on my own. Seeing the prisoners around me lying on the ground jerking and foaming until they become motionless, I decided that I am not going to die so easily. Thats what the Germans wanted to see and I am not going to let them have their way. I wanted to survive for the sake of my family and to bear testament to the brutalities they have done.

Now, looking at this dialogue, you can see that this ex-prisoner seem very optimistic about his fate. Given the conditions at that time, you will have expect the people to simpily give up. As mentioned in "Principles of Learning and Behaviour" animals or humans who find themselves in a condition where they can't do anything about their fate may fall into a state of learned helplessness which is evident in many prisoners of the concentration camp. However, this prisoner did not conform to this theory. Why? Hatred for the German captors that propel him to survive? The yearning to see his family? The belief in God?

We may never know the correct answer. However, what we do know is this person is very optimistic about his future. Viewed in other people's view who are suffering from the same fate, he may be viewed as being too optimistic or unrealistic. "Social Psychology Alive" mentioned that we tend to be have unrealistic optimistic views about our future because;

1. We want our future to be rosy but since we are threatened with possibility of negative events, we tend to see optimistically that life has something good in store for us.

2. We believe we are good people and deserve goog things

3. We are not aware of the risk reducing features other people have.

According to "Social Psychology Alive", although being overly optimistic may prevent us from making good and accurate judgements about ourselves, it can also help us in preventing the formation of negative emotions like depression and sadness. In a way, this could have helped the John to survive because according to "Health Psychology BioPsychoSocial model" negative emotions tend to take a toll on health by compromising the immune system and encourage the formation of plaque leading to high blood pressures and other cardiac complications. At the same time, the negative emotions may push the person into a state of learned helplessness that lead to the person adopting less healthy behaviours. Therefore, John's optimism may give him an edge in his quest to survive by keeping his body healthy for as much as possible and more importantly, through illusion of control. (The tendency to overestimate our control of situations and events) John perceive that he can gain control of the situation and entice him to adopt survival measures to strengthen his control.

Lastly, according to Albert Bandura ( mentioned in Social Psychology Alive), feelings of self efficacy are important determinants of whether people can achieve their goals. This is because self-efficacy is the belief that we are capable of performing a particular behaviour required for a certain goal. Perhaps the optimism John had may have strengthened his belief that he could tide through this trying time and therefore preventing John from giving in to the situation.

The motto from Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon organiser is You can achieve if you believe. So is it that if we are able to believe more in ourselves, we may truly be able to succeed in whatever we are doing? If that is so, perhaps like a lot martial art practictioners preached: "The worst opponent is yourself", the biggest obstacles in our life that prevent us from succeeding in life is ourelves or more specifically, the amount of trust in ourselves we have.

Louis Tan

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