Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths. Is it surprising that in those depths we again found only human qualities which in their very nature were a mixture of good and evil? The rift dividing good from evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches into the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss which is laid open by the concentration camps.
Viktor Frankl was a Jewish-Austrian psychiatrist who began practicing in the early part of the 20th century. He and his family were interred in a Nazi concentration camp in 1942 and later he was transferred to Auschwitz. His wife and family all died in the camps, but Frankl alone survived. Years later he wrote about his experience in this book, Man's Search for Meaning.
In the book, Frankl describes the prisoner's experience in the camps and analyzes the mental state of his fellow prisoners, noting how the prisoners responded to life in camp. The mental response to imprisonment he describes, consisted of three phases: the period of admission (shock), the period after being in the camp routine (apathy), and the period after liberation (depersonalization).
When a prisoner first arrived in the camp, they experienced a progressive loss of all things until all that remained was their literal nakedness. They were stripped of their family, clothes, possessions, and even hair. As the initial shock of the camp life wore off, they found themselves with nothing to lose but their lives, and to many, that ceased to become a sincere horror.
A prisoner that survived the initial phase soon found themselves in a mental state of apathy. The suffering, injustice, and tragedy of the camps became so common place that the prisoners ceased to be moved by what they experienced. As their bodies wasted into mere skeletons, their life atrophied to a primitive existence disregarding anything, including others not necessary for mere survival.
Upon liberation, prisoners struggled to adapt to their newfound freedom. They experienced a sense of depersonalization with their environment. They found it hard to believe that freedom was theirs and when they did realize their freedom, some turned that freedom into license to treat others with injustice. For others, as they returned home to find loved ones missing and acquaintances indifferent to their experiences, they struggled with feelings of bitterness or disillusionment.
Throughout the book, Frankl weaves back and forth between recounting his experience in camp and analyzing the experience. He alternates between a ground level and high-altitude perspective about life in the concentration camps. His story bears testimony to the brutality, injustice and suffering experienced by the prisoners in a way that only a holocaust survivor could recount. But he also, because of his medical training and psychiatry perspective, was able to discusses the mental and spiritual significance of a prisoner's life in camp.
All of the prisoners found themselves completely stripped of their possessions, past life, family, health, and autonomy. This led many prisoners down a path of moral decay or to completely give up. Interestingly, despite the physical and mental suffering of the prisoners, Frankl describes how some prisoners were able see past their condition and use that suffering as a seed of inner and spiritual growth.
The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action... Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress... Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way... It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
This begs the question and provides the theme of the book. How do you find meaning in life when everything has been stripped away from you and you find yourself in a horrific or provisional existence?
In searching for this answer, Frankl uncovers the core aspects of finding meaning in life. Meaning is found by answering the question of what life expects of us whether that be in comfort or suffering, not what we can get from life.
It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual... When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.
There is a lot that we can learn from this book.
1. Man is capable of great evil and great good. Frankl writes, "Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz..." He describes the atrocities committed by sadistic guards and capos. But, he also shares examples of guards who would take pity on the prisoners and offer even a small comfort. "Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn." And what is even more profound, he tells of prisoners who maintained a sense of decency and inner strength despite their suffering. "...However, he (man) is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."
2. Meaning is found not in what you can get from life but in seeking what life requires of you. We have an inherent tendency to approach life with the hedonistic perspective of what we can extract from it. How can we maximize happiness or experience for ourselves? Even our altruism is often filtered through the lens of how it affects our own happiness or wellbeing. Frankl turns this perspective on its head when he states that "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us." Our meaning in life is then derived from taking on the responsibility of fulfilling what life expects.
Personally, I found this book to be thought provoking and helpful as Frankl's words carry with them the authority of his experience. The idea of finding meaning in life and how to respond to suffering has been filling my headspace lately. This book was able to answer a number of important questions that I have been pondering. This book is now taking a place in the canon of works on my essential bookshelf.
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