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.