MEANING OF LIFE

After the Spanish Civil War, my grandfather had to flee to the camp de concentration d’Argelès-sur-Mer for Spanish Republican refugees in France. As many other refugees, my grandfather had typhus; but he survived and returned home. Getting back home with his family was his meaning of life. 

After the Spanish Civil War, around one hundred Republican men and women, both of civilian and military background, crossed the border to France. Right there, they were disarmed and interned in French concentration camps. During more than six months, my grandfather was in Argelès-sur-Mer. The Living conditions in the camp was inhumane and many refugees died of hunger, cold and infectious diseases. My grandfather was one of these soldiers who had typhus.

Even though my grandfather was very sick, he survived. According to Viktor E. Frankl, the meaning of life is found in every moment of living. Even in the midst of extreme suffering, men can find a spiritual reason for living. My grandfather use to tell us that when he felt sick, he told himself that he couldn’t die. He must return home because back home he had his wife and two children waiting for him. 

In the French concentration camp, my grandfather asked around how typhus infection could be cured and someone told him a very odd treatment. Every morning during fifteen days, he should eat raw snails starting from one snail on the first day, two snails on the second day, to seven snails on the seven day and getting back from seven to one snails the very last day. Somehow, my grandfather was cured.

When I was a child, my grandfather use to tell us that he could survive either because of the odd snail treatment or because of his will to come back home. Who knows? In fact, it doesn’t really matter. His goal was to come back home and even though he could have died many times, he survived. Because of my grandfather’s strength, he overcame the Spanish Civil War, the French concentration camp, and typhus among many other adversities. His story remains in our family ever after.