Victor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" brings up the topic of dehumanizing people. At a concentration camp during WWII, Frankl talks about his experience. Throughout the story, Frankl brings up how he and the other prisoners are treated like machines. The guards depersonalize the prisoners. By doing this, it says that they aren't equal, they don't deserve respect, they are lower than animals, and they aren't even being treated like prisoners because prisoners are at least treated like human beings while the prisoners at these concentration camps are treated like dirt.
For instance, "For only one moment I paused to get my breath and to lean on my shovel. Unfortunately the guard turned around just then and thought I was loafing. The pain he caused me was not from any insults or any blows. That guard did not think it worth his while to say anything, not even a swear word, to the ragged, emaciated figure standing before him, which probably reminded him only vaguely of a human form. Instead, he playfully picked up a stone and threw it at me. That, to me, seemed the way to attract the attention of a beast, to call a domestic animal back to its job, a creature with which you have so little in common that you do not even punish it." This is just one of the many instances in which the prisoners where dehumanized and treated like machines or animals that are there for the guards benefit.
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