+004_Viktor's Insights from Hell & Meaning Therapy

Viktor's Frankl's existential insights from his 3 years of suffering in 4 different concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Losing everything he holds dear. And still deciding life is worth it.

From Viktor Frankl’s Book “Man’s Search for Meaning” (1939-1945) and his resulting philosophy of “logotherapy.”

https://archive.org/details/manssearchforme000fran

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LAYER OF HELL #1

YOU COULD LEAVE THE COUNTRY TO ESCAPE THE DEATH CAMPS AND PURSUE YOUR LIFE’S WORK WRITING BOOKS, BUT YOU KNOW YOUR PARENTS ARE GOING TO DIE A HORRIFIC DEATH WITHOUT YOU.

Your duties as a child, or your duties to yourself and your life’s work?

This is the problem that falls in the lap of Viktor as the united states enters world war 2,  and Hitler occupies Austria in 1938.

What’s so personal about this one is that Viktor could have justified going after his dream, and his parents would have been happy for him…but of course, in some sense, he was doing the cowardly thing.

But would it not have been justified? Wouldn’t it have been the smart thing to do? Here he was, an educated man. A doctor. Why waste the life.

Here is his account from a beacon press .pdf version I fond online, (pg.8) of his dilemma:

“The question beset me: could I really afford to leave my parents alone to face their fate, to be sent, sooner or later, to a concentration camp? Where did my responsibility lie? Should I foster my brain child, logotherapy, by emigrating to fertile soil where I could write my books? Or should I concentrate on my duties as a real child, the child of my parents who had to do whatever he could to protect them?”

Viktor claimed that he received a hint from heaven, even though deep down he knew the answer of what was most honorable to do.

The hint was his father had picked up a piece of a broken marble statue.

Viktor asked his father what the “gilded Hebrew letter” meant.

His father said it was the commandment: “Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long upon the land.”

Viktor stays to endure his fate. First layer of hell endured.