Man’s Search For Meaning – Viktor E. Frankl – Review

Concentration camp (1939-45) in Auschwitz which is in the southern part of Poland highlights the devilish nature of mankind. A quick look at the numbers will elucidate the trauma each of the captured civilians, prisoners of war or jews had to undergo. A total of 1.3 million who belonged to the non-German creed were captured, out of which 1.1 million were murdered in the concentration camp. This would give an inmate roughly 1/10th of a chance to survive the brutal treatment met out to them.

Under the influence of concentration camp, which disregarded the value of human life and made each inmate an object of extermination. The only reason a Schutzstaffel guard left a prisoner alive was to extract every ounce of physical resource in each of them. With the given background, every prisoner lost his sense of being an individual and identified himself as a part of the pack, regressing to an animal form of life which can be herded around. In short, the man has retreated himself to a primitive age and all that he longed for was bread, soup and warm bath on an average day.  

With brutal implementation of a forced undesirable condition, Viktor who was one of the victims of Auschwitz concentration camp tries to find the meaning of his existence under strenuous suffering arising from mental, physical and spiritual side of a human. He is amongst the small percentage of prisoners who survived the concentration camp, lived till 1997 and authored 6 books centred around logotherapy and psychotherapy.

Viktor makes a deep-rooted statement, “He who has a strong why to live for can bear with almost any how.” In the case of Viktor it was strong desire to complete his manuscript while for a few others it’s the longing to be back with their family.

An interesting incident from his experience in concentration camp was put forward by Viktor. In the month of February, an inmate had a dream that the war will come to an end and he will be released by 30th of March. As the date drew close by, there was no sign of war coming to an end and liberation was out of question. The inmate suddenly became ill and caught high temperature on the day his prophecy voiced into him the promise on conclusion to war and suffering which never actually reached fruition within the said date. To all outward appearances, he died due to typhus the next day.

On a deeper lever, we can realize that there is a strong correlation between hope and immunity system in our body. As the expected liberation didn’t arrive, he lost all hope on release from suffering, which lowered his body’s resistance against the latent typhus infection. A clear indication of how emotions plays with physiology of the body.

As years passed by, the Soviet cracked down on the Germans eventually leading to the end of war and the breakdown of concentration camp. The liberation brought in tremendous joy but there is a flip side to liberation as well, which can be termed as post liberation trauma. As the released inmate marched joyously towards his home, he failed to realize that his family has been gassed in the concentration camp marking him as the only one alive. The homecoming inmate realised that he has no one to live for which eventually pushed him into a zone of disillusion.

The fundamental point in Viktor’s narrative is that unavoidable suffering can create a pathway in identification of meaning towards one’s existence provided the same is fully accepted. Once a soul realizes the meaning of his existence, he drives his entire life towards actualizing the same.  

No need for recommendation. It’s a brilliant narration coming out of an individual’s hard life experience.

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