Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankle, M.D., Ph.D. Originally published in 1946, this certainly chronicles Viktor’s truly horrific experiences as an Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner.
So, The US Library of Congress lists this book as one of the ten most influence in the country. In addition, after surviving he developed a psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence and finding a reason to continue living. Viktor’s experiences at Auschwitz are certainly deeply moving.
After less than one year of marriage, he and his family in 1942 arrived at Theresienstadt concentration camp. Yet, his father soon died of starvation and pneumonia. Two years later he and his family were at Auschwitz. Viktor’s mother and brother also were quickly led to the gas chambers. His wife later died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
To his credit, his focus is not on the horror of Auschwitz as Viktor acknowledges others have addressed, but how as the title suggests, you can find meaning in life under the most horrific conditions. In fact, his writing includes how guards and even prisoners (temporally elevated into supervisor roles) inhumanly treated their prisoners. Likewise, he became the founder of logotherapy, a form of Existential Analysis, the “Third Viennese School” of psychotherapy.
Also, in a book very overwhelming to simply review, two passages stand out among several memorable stories:
Pointing to the left
So, his story as a newly arrived prisoner confronting the SS officer who will determine his fate with the simple flick of his finger:
We were told to leave our luggage in the train and to fall into two lines—women on one side, men on the other—in order to file past a senior SS officer….Then I was face to face with him. He was a tall man who looked slim and fit in his spotless uniform. What a contrast to us, who were untidy and grimy after our long journey! He had assumed an attitude of careless ease, supporting his right elbow with his left hand. His right hand was lifted, and with the forefinger of that hand he pointed very leisurely to the right or to the left. None of us had the slightest idea of the sinister meaning behind that little movement of a man’s finger, pointing now to the right and now to the left, but far more frequently to the left.
pg. 31.
Logotherapy
His story, working as a prisoner in frigid temperatures for hours while holding onto the faint possibility of seeing his wife again triggers a powerful observation:
For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.
pgs. 77-78.
Viktor did not know at the time that she had already died at Bergen-Belson.
In conclusion, there are few books that deliver such an overwhelmingly powerful story. There is a slight parallel with Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture. Viktor justly deserves recognition for writing one of the most important books in history.