The quote above comes from Viktor Frankl as he explains life at a Nazi concentration camp. He suffered from edema, which caused his tissues to swell up and made moving around torture. His feet were uncovered as he walked through snow and didn’t have a pair of socks–not that he could wear them anyway because his shoes were already tight due to his swollen feet. With barely any clothes or gear, he and others were still forced to mine the frozen ground for ten or more hours a day.

The only nutrition prisoners were given was a bowl of very watery soup once daily and a small piece of bread. Sometimes they were given special extra allowances consisting of a piece of cheese or a slice of poor quality sausage.



Life wasn’t much better for Alistair Urquhart at the Japanese labor camps. He was given only a cup of rice and water for each meal. From constantly working in the jungle with no shoes, he developed tropical ulcers. There was a doctor in his camp but he didn’t have any medicine so the best advice he gave Urquhart was to put maggots on his foot to eat the dead skin.

As crazy as it sounds, it’s true: