Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and Holocaust survivor. He was the founder of logotherapy, a form of existential analysis. He was a psychiatrist and a Jewish man living in Germany. Between 1942 and 1945, Viktor Frankl labored in four different Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished.
On a day in September 1942, Viktor Frankl’s name was replaced by a number: 119104, and along with over 1,500 other Jews, was crammed into a train about to depart. The carriage was overcrowded with more than 80 people, stifling and suffocating, with only a sliver of dim sunlight streaming in from the top of the window.
In the early hours, the train slowed down, and some passengers saw a Westerbork-Auschwitz train signboard. Auschwitz was a concentration and extermination camp established during Hitler’s Nazi Germany’s reign in 1940, often referred to as a death factory and located in the suburbs of the Polish city of Oswiecim.
As they disembarked from the train, they were lined up in front of a SS officer. This officer casually pointed left or right with his finger. If you pointed left, you went left; if you pointed right, you went right. When it was Viktor Frankl’s turn, he straightened his back, trying to appear capable. The officer hesitated for a moment and pointed to the right.
Viktor Frankl walked to the right and asked an old prisoner: “Where will my friend, who went to the left, go?” The old prisoner pointed to a chimney emitting smoke: “Your friend is slowly drifting into the sky.” Of the 1.3 million sent to Auschwitz by the Nazi regime, barely 400,000 went right and were registered and imprisoned in the compound. The other 900,000 went left and were gassed and cremated in incineration ovens or burning pits within hours after their train’s arrival.
Getting past this first SS selection did not guarantee survival. The killing process was systematic, industrialized, and efficiency-oriented. Once inside the camp, the inmates’ average living expectancy did not exceed a few weeks due to the extreme conditions in which they were held. At least 1.1 million of the 1.3 million people who were sent to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945 died.
Next, SS soldiers laid blankets on the ground and ordered them to throw out all their possessions: watches, jewelry, rings, and necklaces. The soldiers said: “Within two minutes, strip off all your clothes. Time starts now!” Viktor Frankl was then shaved off all body hair and driven into the bathhouse, where over 100 Jews lined up in front of the showers. When water flowed from the nozzles (instead of gas), everyone was relieved, cheering and joking with each other.
In the first phase of life in the concentration camp, everyone tried every possible way to survive. For example, Viktor Frankl believed that shaving daily increased the chances of survival because it made you look healthier and younger, suggesting you could do more work. To this end, he insisted on shaving every day, initially using a piece of glass, and later, when the glass was confiscated, using hard bread.
Viktor Frankl’s three essentials for survival
Someone told Viktor Frankl: “If you have blisters on your heels and walk with a limp, you’ll be sent to the gas chamber the next day.” Therefore, he summarized the “three essentials for survival”: shave, stand straight, and work efficiently. He believed that as long as he did these three things, he need not fear the gas chamber.
Not long after, Viktor Frankl entered the second phase of life in the concentration camp: emotional numbness and fearlessness of death. Once, a 12-year-old boy had severe frostbite on his toes. A doctor used tweezers to pull off the boy’s necrotic black toes. Viktor Frankl was present at the time, watching everything with no emotional reaction. He said: “I felt no compassion, sadness, or fear.” Whenever someone died in the camp, prisoners would expressionlessly strip the deceased of their clothes, shoes, and belts and even take away their unfinished mashed potatoes.
The third phase of life in the concentration camp was the longing for death. According to Viktor Frankl, every prisoner in the camp had contemplated suicide. The most convenient method was to touch the electric fence. Viktor Frankl said: “Deciding to commit suicide was not difficult because there was no hope of survival.”
Over time, prisoners were no longer afraid of the gas chamber. On the contrary, some even hoped to enter the gas chamber, as it spared them the trouble of committing suicide. As labor intensity increased and food became scarcer, subcutaneous fat was depleted, and prisoners became emaciated, dying one by one. One day, Viktor Frankl saw a roommate sitting on the bed, crying because his shoe had a hole. He knew that this roommate’s days were numbered. In such a survival environment, mental collapse meant that death was near.
The highest death rate in the concentration camp was around Christmas because many prisoners fantasized about being released. When hope was shattered, they lost the courage to live. As a psychopathologist, Viktor Frankl discovered that what keeps people alive is not “hope,” but “meaning.” Philosophers say that knowing why you live enables you to survive.
In 1945, Viktor Frankl was rescued from the concentration camp by Soviet troops. Only then did he learn that his father had starved to death, the Nazis had killed his mother and brother, and his pregnant wife had died in the camps. Only he and his sister survived. At that time, he weighed only 37.5 kilograms, had an irregular heartbeat, myocardial damage, and three severely frostbitten fingers. However, grief and suffering did not defeat Viktor Frankl.
Soon after leaving the concentration camp, with the help of friends and family, he wrote and published Man’s Search for Meaning. This memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. The U.S. Library of Congress selected the book as one of the 10 most influential; it was translated into 24 languages and sold over 12 million copies. His readers span the globe, including politicians, scholars, teachers, and even the Pope.
At 67, he obtained a pilot’s license. At 80, he climbed the Alps. At 90, he was still teaching at the university, writing his autobiography, meeting scholars, and personally responding to hundreds of letters from readers each week until his peaceful passing in 1997.
Many people are curious about Viktor Frankl: How could he live such a remarkable life after experiencing so much suffering and witnessing the ugliness of human nature? He transformed the suffering and courage to survive in the concentration camp into a method of heart study and a book that heals the soul: Man’s Search for Meaning. This book is especially suitable for those who have lost direction and confidence in life. Viktor Frankl believed that once a person finds the meaning of life, they not only feel happiness but also can cope with suffering.
In his book, Viktor Frankl tells the story of an elderly man who couldn’t bear the pain of losing his wife. Viktor Frankl asked him: “Have you ever thought about what would happen if you died first and your wife was still alive?” The old man said: “She would suffer; how could she bear it?” Viktor Frankl replied: “So, the pain you are enduring now is meaningful because it spares your wife from the same pain.” Upon hearing this, the old man was relieved because he found meaning in enduring the loss of his wife.
Logotherapy cannot help us live happily or avoid pain. But it can help us find the value of happiness and the meaning of pain. For example, a woman facing the challenges of an ungrateful and unsympathetic husband, unruly children, and a lonely, unfulfilling life as a housewife is not uncommon. Many full-time mothers share this predicament. As long as you are willing to change and not afraid of change, you can find a way out of your plight and discover the meaning of life. Life certainly has meaning. It’s just that with so many trivial things, you forget where it is. As long as you are willing, you can find it.
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