Jujupiter

In this essay, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor E. Frankl reports his experience in concentration camps under the Third Reich. He also elaborates on logotherapy, a new psychotherapy method he based on the importance of the meaning of one's life.

I read Primo Levi's If This Is A Man ages ago but it's always shocking to read about the atrocities that occurred during Nazi Germany. Of course, there is the never-ending list of crimes perpetrated by the regime, notably the arbitrary executions, the starving, the enslavement, the beatings, the extremely dire life conditions and all-around dehumanisation of the prisoners, but I had forgotten some things, for example, that a number of companies used forced labour from the camps, despite these individuals looking clearly unwell.

Frankl gives the most earnest account possible and articulates his existentialist perspective on the horror. He believes that someone who could find meaning in their suffering was more likely to survive. He recalls seeing several inmates going through a mental breakdown and giving up only to die mere days later, like a psychic death preceding the physical one. Of course, a lot of the prisoners, whether they could find meaning or not, could not escape their fate, because those in charge had decided to kill them for whatever reason. Frankl relates escaping death several times, not out of wit but out of pure luck. The importance of meaning appears as well when Frankl got arbitrarily beaten. Suffering is one thing but suffering for no valid reason is even worse.

In that respect, Frankl's book is an important account of what happened and we need to remember what atrocities a fascist regime can commit because, of course, we need to prevent it from happening again. That said, despite some good insights, I was expecting more from the logotherapy part. This is not a scientific treatise, it's just an outline of an approach, but it's an interesting collection of views.