Viktor Frankl's reflection on choice in Auschwitz, from Man's Search for Meaning, p. 66:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms– to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.