I was about to write that I thoroughly enjoyed this book but that's not exactly what one says about a book describing suffering of others. Instead I'll say I was benefited greatly by reading what others have gleaned from their difficult experiences and the wise way Herr Frankl interpreted and voiced his experiences. It's fascinating how, due to his background as a psychoanalyst, he describes things very objectively, at least for someone who has lived through these things! It's still very poignant, but he was so observant of the nature of the men around him and of his own feelings. He even analyzes his analyzing from the get-go.
"To attempt a methodical presentation of the subject is very difficult, as psychology requires a certain scientific detachment. But does a man who makes his observations while he himself is a prisoner possess the necessary detachment? Such detachment is granted to the outsider, but he is too far removed to make any statements of real value. Only the man inside knows.His judgments may not be objective; his evaluations may be out of proportion. This is inevitable. An attempt must be made to avoid any personal bias, and that is the real difficulty of a book of this kind. At times it will be necessary to have the courage to tell the very intimate experiences. I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value, and that I must have the courage to state my convictions openly. I therefore refrained from deleting any of the passages, in spite of an intense dislike of exhibitionism."
Another powerful passage:
On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles - whatever one may choose to call them - we know: the best of us did not return.
Here are several other insights I found extremely insightful:
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.
For the first time in my life I saw the truth- that love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
As the inner life of the prisoner tended to become more intense, he also experienced the beauty of art and nature as never before.
Speaking of his wife: More and more I felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was very strong: she was
there.
It is possible to practice the art of living even in a concentration camp, although suffering is omnipresent.
In one of many instances Frankl lets fate take it's course and boards a convoy to a camp they are told is a rest camp. He thinks he is going to his own death in the gas chambers and so he "records a will" for himself. He tells his friend Otto "If I don't get back home to my wife, and if you should see her again, then tell her that I talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I have loved her more that anyone. Thirdly, the short time I have been married to her outweighs everything, even all we have gone through here." As it ends up, he is actually sent to a rest camp. And in the camp he leaves famine rages horribly, to the point that some resort to cannabilism. On another occasion he has the chance to leave for what he thinks is a better circumstance but decides to stay and die. Instead, the friends who are taken away are put in huts and burned. He is liberated from the camp the very next day.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- the 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...If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering...Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through is own suffering.
A young woman who is dying in the camp was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard. In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." He worries about her because she says she talks to the tree outside her window. When he asks what it says to her, she replies 'I am here - I am here - I am life, eternal life.'"
Quoting Nietzche's words: He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how. (p.76)
We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that 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. (p.77)
Part of a speech he was asked by his senior block warden to give at the camp to give the men some encouragement: What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. (taken from a poem) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind. (82)
He recounts how the commander of his camp when he was liberated was known to have bought medicines for the prisoners with his own money and never rose a finger to any of the men. After the camp was liberated, "three young hungarian Jews hid this commander in the Bavarian woods. Then they went to the commander of the American Forces who was very eager to capture this commander and they said they would tell him where he was but only under certain conditions: the American commander must promise that absolutely no harm would come to this man. After a while, the American officer finally promised these young Jews that the SS commander when taken into captiviity would be kept safe from harm...Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a while it would be easy to condemn." (p.85-86)
According to logotherapy (his main focus of study), this striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of the
will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or the
will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered. (p.99)
These thoughts remind me of Elder Bednar's talk in April 2014 general conference:
Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become...What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him...If architects want to strenthen a decrepit arch, they
increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to create a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life. (p. 105)
The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. (p.111)
On the meaning of suffering: When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves...man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life...In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end." (p. 112-114)
So I found myself confronted with the question whether under such circumstances my life was ultimately void of any meaning. Not yet did I notice that an answer to this question with which I was wrestling so passionately was already in store for me, and that soon thereafter this answer would be given to me. This was the case when I had to surrender my clothes and in turn inherited the worn-out rags of an inmate after his arrival at Auschwitz railway station. Instead of the many pages of my manuscript, I found in a pocket of the newly acquired coat one single page torn out of a Hebrew prayer book, containing the most important Jewish prayer,
Shema Yisrael. How should I have interpreted such a "coincidence" other than as a challenge to
live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper? A bit later, I remember, it seemed to me that I would die in the near future. In this critical situation, however, my concern was different from that of most of my comrades. Their question was, "Will we survive the camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning." The question which beset me was, "Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning in survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such happenstance ultimately would not be worth living at all." (p. 115)
On meta-clinical problems:
- More and more, a psychiatrist is approached today by patients who confront him with human problems rather than neurotic symptoms. Some of the people who nowadays call on a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest or rabbi in former days. Now they often refuse to be handed over to a clergyman and instead confront the doctor with questions such as, "What is the meaning of life?" (p.116)
- After a while I proceeded to another question...the question was whether an ape which was being used to develop poliomyelitis serum,and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously the group replied that of course it would not; with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable. Then I pushed forward with the following question: "And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man's world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?"(p.118)
I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy. (p.122)
As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable. (p.130)
You may ask whether we really need to refer to "saints." Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. (p.154)
A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness and satisfaction; it many even lead to depression or physical illness. (p.160)
