A psychiatrist in a Nazi death camp and his bestseller book

Víktor Frankl, the psychologist and philosopher who “banked hell itself and then rolled up his sleeves to tell it” in “Man’s Search for Meaning”, his book about his stay in Auschwitz.

Why am I going to lie to you? I still have a hard time finding my way around. Tragedies have that: they leave you dry, barren, uninhabited. What do I know As if one day you had a soul and the next bye, nothingness itself. The echo of what you were.

It was in this eagerness to find myself that works such as that of the Austrian psychiatrist and philosopher Víktor Frankl, founder of logotherapy, reappeared. This is Man’s Search for Meaning. I first read it in high school and understood little of it. Then I read it in college and something remained. And in the third reading – which is not always the charm – I understood everything.

[”El hombre en busca de sentido” puede comprarse en formato digital en Bajalibros clickeando acá]

A few days after my brother died, a victim of covid, I devoured him. Capable in search of the meaning that was lost or left with him. Or in the hope of healing the wound with the “now, already” logic of technology. I don’t know. In any case, it is worth addressing this masterpiece a thousand times more, this encyclopedia of why life deserves to be lived, seeking without losing enthusiasm the reason for our existence and understanding that it is neither more nor less than the meaning that we we can give it ourselves.

That’s why, and Frankl knows it better than anyone. Because the guy banked hell itself and then rolled up his sleeves to tell it. Because he lost everything in that filthy hole called Auschwitz: his young wife, their firstborn (which she carried in her womb), his father and her mother. All died. scorched earth.

“Man’s Search for Meaning”, by Víktor Frankl, edited by Herder.

It is a psychology book, but written without the relief of a scientific work. Your reading is friendly. It is well understood. It is a mirror for all those who are going through pain, regardless of the reason for it. The harshness of the story is an exorcism that at times releases the weight we carry in our souls and leaves it there, on the side of the road as we continue walking.

“I must emphasize that this text does not intend to recount my experiences in the concentration camp. My intention is to describe, by virtue of my experience as a psychiatrist, how the normal prisoner lived in the camp and how that life influenced his psychology. (…) For those who have never stepped foot in a field, perhaps it will help them to understand the atrocious experiences of the inmates and, what is more difficult, to understand the attitude towards life of the survivors”, writes Frankl. The desire to stay alive despite.

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The work is divided into two parts. The first narrates the complete sequence -in three phases- of internment, life in the concentration camp and liberation. And the second explains the basic concepts of logotherapy. “After all, we still had healthy bones. Our experiences in the field could be useful in the future. And I quoted Nietzsche: everything that doesn’t destroy me strengthens me. (…) I also referred to the past, to the joy and light that radiated against the gloomy present. (…) And I quoted the poet: no power on earth will be able to take away what you have lived (…) and having been is a way of being, and perhaps the safest”, writes the author who obtained 29 honorary doctorate degrees for his knowledge, work and legacy in improving our lives.

Víktor Frankl’s lesson: accept suffering as part of what gives meaning to our existence. (Getty Images)

At this point it is very clear that, if Frankl had not gone through this experience, surely today neither this book, nor logotherapy nor many other works of the surviving doctor would exist, product of what he had learned, reflected on and walked in the most horrendous of all imaginable realities. Because what is flowery in the tree lives off what is buried and all that, right?

[Otros libros de Víktor Frankl pueden comprarse en formato digital en Bajalibros clickeando acá]

This being the case, Frankl encourages us to continue and he doesn’t do it just like that. He not only believes it, but also gives testimony and example. Coming out of hell, he wrote that the meaning of life is given by one, whether you are broken, healthy, or whatever. “Then I referred to the many possibilities that can give meaning to life. While my companions lay motionless, and sometimes groans were heard, I told them that human life is never, under any circumstances, without meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life also includes suffering and agony, deprivation and death. I begged those creatures, who were listening in the darkness of the barracks, to face up to the seriousness of our situation. They should not let themselves be discouraged, but rather maintain confidence and courage, aware that not even the lack of perspective in our desperate struggle could rob them of their meaning and dignity.”

For Frankl, the meaning of life changes continuously but never stops. According to his own theory, logotherapy, we can discover the meaning in three ways: performing an action (carrying out the vocation, teaching, raising, accompanying, working, learning), accepting the gifts of existence (for example, love, nature, art, music), and by suffering. And this last one is the one that always struck me. Because he says that facing an irrevocable situation offers the opportunity to realize the supreme value for him, that of fulfilling the deepest meaning: accepting suffering as part of what gives meaning to our existence.

“A man can be robbed of everything, except one thing, the last of the freedoms of the human being, the choice of his own attitude in any type of circumstance, the choice of his own path.” That’s why it’s not over until it’s over. At least that’s how Viktor Frankl understood it. And hopefully, very soon, all of us.

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