THE POEMS IN THIS SECTION, like those of the previous one, were written during internment in Dachau concentration camp. Despite the attending danger, many of the poems were written down immediately, insofar as their authors had the opportunity to do so. Others were composed mentally and written down shortly after liberation. Yet the effort not to be deprived of freedom of thought, despite every degradation, is visible in all of these works, whatever shape that effort took in individual cases. Poetry composed under oppressive and dehumanizing totalitarian regimes, whatever their persuasion, is always an attempt to preserve humanity's fundamental values. These poems are individual attempts at finding a personal answer, and vary in their reaction: despair, accusation, and hope. Yet there is one thing they all have in common: the cry for human decency as the only hope for a better future.

Viktor Frankl, himself a survivor, expresses it thus: