While we were waiting for the shower, our nakedness was brought home to us: we really had nothing now except our bare bodies—even minus hair; all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.
What else remained for us as a material link with our former lives?
[…] After a time we again heard the lashings of the strap, and the screams of tortured men.
This time it lasted for quite a while.
Thus the illusions some of us still held were destroyed one by one, and then, quite unexpectedly, most of us were overcome by a grim sense of humor.
We knew that we had nothing to lose except our so ridiculously naked lives.
When the showers started to run, we all tried very hard to make fun, both about ourselves and about each other.
After all, real water did flow from the sprays!
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, Beacon Press (2006 edition), p. 26-27, 1946