From “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust” by Viktor E. Frankl
The carriage doors were flung open and a small detachment of prisoners stormed inside. They wore striped uniforms, their heads were shaved, but they looked well fed. They spoke in every possible European tongue, and all with a certain amount of humour, which sounded grotesque under the circumstances. Like a drowning man clutching a straw, my inborn optimism (which has often controlled by feelings even in the most desperate situations) clung to this thought: these prisoners look quite well, they seem to be in good spirits and even laugh. Who knows? I might manage to share their favourable position.
In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as ‘delusion of reprieve’. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. We, too, clung to shreds of hope and believed to the last moment that it would not be so bad. Just the sight of the red cheeks and round faces of those prisoners was a great encouragement. Little did we know then that they formed a specially chosen elite, who for years had been the receiving squad for new transports as they rolled into the station day after day.