“If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automaton of reflexes, as a mind machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of heredity and environment. If we do that we will feed the nihilism which modern man is in any case prone. I became acquainted with the last stage of corruption at my second concentration camp, Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the of heredity and environment, or as the Nazis liked to say ‘of blood and soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry of defense or other in Berlin but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.”

–Vickor Frankl