He meant being mocked, as if he were the cause of his own murder. He meant being executed publicly, to frighten others. He meant dying in despair. Yes, life is a difficult affair. God meets us in our agonies, no matter how small.
Religion is a bearer of respite.
But the suffering of his Son was deeper than any of that. And the challenge of responding to him is deeper than answering momentary woe. For Jesus saw the face of evil - the empty eyes, the smirking mouth, the brutal hand, the vacant soul. When Wiesel wrote his book after a long self-imposed silence, no publisher would touch it. People wanted to forget.