Victor Frankl was an unlucky individual present at the wrong place at the wrong time. Yet, if he was not unlucky, this brilliant book would have never existed.
Almost everyone knows the atrocities faced by the Jews during the Second World War but as an outsider, can one ever understand or empathize with the experience of an inmate who lived there for a long time? I guess not and neither would we want to. Victor Frankl, the author of this book was subject to high levels of inhumane treatment in a couple of concentration camps including Auschwitz for absolutely no fault of his. His ethnicity robbed him of his freedom. He was starved, degraded, humiliated, tortured and made to work in extreme conditions for long hours without proper clothes and inadequate food which was enough to only barely keep you alive, only barely. Neither was he aware whether his loved ones were alive or gassed to death.
The book can be divided into two parts. The first is his short autobiographical memoir about his experiences in the concentration camp. The second part involves an insight into his unique approach ‘Logotherapy’. The book is his account on his attempt to find meaning in his life through his suffering.
Concentration camps
The author narrates his journey from being a doctor to being just a number in concentration camp in the initial part of the book. Starting from the terror upon seeing the signboard of ‘Auschwitz’ on the train route and the collective’ delusion of reprieve’ among the prisoners wishing they would be reprieved at the last minute, he narrates the journey where he lived on bare minimum food while sleeping and working under extremely cold and tough conditions where a little show of weakness and fragility would have made him qualify as ‘unfit’ whereupon he would have been gassed to death quickly. He escapes death a couple of times just out of sheer luck. He does everything to bolster his odds of surviving including making friends with a ‘Capo’, working as a Doctor for treating patients and trying to escape a couple of times unsuccessfully. He also tries to have a sense of humour and regularly imagines his loved ones with him to keep his mental sanity. Suffering became a part of his life in an environment where majority of the inmates had accepted that it was their fate to suffer. It was probably the better approach to take mentally to survive there.
Despite the lack of morality and justice about the treatment they were getting, the author states that many inmates including himself maintained their moral compass and empathy. He further states that man has control over his behaviour and is not a product of his environment and biology and thinking otherwise can be quite destructive. He further argues that true strength of character is seen in these tough situations and they were the rare opportunities to develop. He also talks about various other psychotherapy stuff such as ‘Paradoxical Intention’, ‘Existential Vacuum’ and an interesting story of fate called ‘Death in Tehran’.
Meaning and Logotherapy
The chances of surviving those concentration camps were in low single digits (1 in 28 exactly). Most of the inmates did not expect to survive the horror-show that endured upon them. So, rarely would anyone try to commit suicide by running into the electric barbed fence as most were aware of their slim chances of survival. Seeing hopelessness of the situation at one end and extreme suffering at the other, it is pretty easy to lose any enthusiasm or hope for life. Yet the author writes that the major difference between those who survived and those who did not was having a sense of meaning. Suffering becomes so much more bearable if it has some meaning.
‘He who has a why to live can bear almost any how’ – Fredrick Nietzsche
This quote appears quite a few times in this book.
Search for Meaning is something that is more of a modern-day epidemic. It is hard to imagine some tribal throwing stones into the river while contemplating the ‘purpose of his life’. Yet with the onset of ever-increasing knowledge and technological advances which have taken most of our tribal worries away, we have become more obsessed with the question. The truth is that as long as we live, we need at least ‘some meaning’ to our life even if it is invented.
Having a meaning to his suffering was what helped Victor Frankl survive. As he noted, inmates who lost out on having any meaning did not survive. For they did not have a ‘why’, they did not survive ‘any how’.
It is absolutely destructive to have the nihilist approach of believing meaninglessness of life to be true and thinking it is brave to embrace meaninglessness of life head-on whereas believing that having a purpose or meaning in life is an escapist psychological trick that cowards use. Reading this book made me realize that there is nothing brave about this realization and taking it head-on. On the contrary, ‘meaning’ is what makes life worth living even if it is invented and temporary. It is what makes humans resilient to suffering, it is what helps them achieve their maximum potential and it is what makes you survive and accomplish things which were seemingly improbable.
The ultimate meaning of life or human existence is a subjective and debatable topic. There has been no satisfactory answer to it even after thousands of years of philosophizing by great thinkers and intellectuals. Maybe there is no ultimate meaning, maybe there is. But one thing I have learnt is that having a ‘meaning’ is much more effective to live a good life and more importantly survive tough times. And I prefer to be effective.
Final Word
This is a brilliantly written book that doesn’t take much of your time. The autobiographical part of the book is haunting at times but gives a glimpse of the life in the dreaded camps and the different approaches used to survive the camps, both physically and mentally.
It makes the case for the importance of having meaning in our lives (aka ‘Logotherapy’) while also arguing that suffering, even though not desirable and necessary can be a great source of learning and meaning in our lives.