On January 27, 2006, the sixty-first anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz death camp, where 1.5 million people died, nations around the world observed the first international Holocaust Remembrance Day. A few months later, they might well have celebrated the anniversary of one of the most abiding pieces of writing from that horrendous time. First published in German in 1946 as A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp and later called Say Yes to Life in Spite of Everything, subsequent editions were supplemented by an introduction to logotherapy and a postscript on tragic optimism, or how to remain optimistic in the face of pain, guilt, and death. The English translation, first published in 1959, was called Man's Search of Meaning.
Viktor Frankl's book has now sold more than 12 million copies in a total of twenty-four languages. A 1991 Library of Congress/Book-of-the-Month Club survey asking readers to name a "book that made a difference in your life" found Man's Search for Meaning among the ten most influential books in America. It has inspired religious and philosophical thinkers, mental-health professionals, teachers, students, and general readers from all walks of life. It is routinely assigned to college, graduate, and high school students in psychology, philosophy, history, literature, Holocaust studies, religion, and theology. What accounts for its pervasive influence and enduring value?
Viktor Frankl's life spanned nearly all of the twentieth century from his birth in 1905 to his death in 1997. At the age of three he decided to become a physician. In his autobiographical reflections, he recalls tha t as a youth he would "think for some minutes about the meaning of life. Particularly about the meaning of the coming day and its meaning for me."
As a teenager Frankl was fascinated by philosophy, experimental psychology, and psychoanalysis. To supplement his high school classes, he attended adult-education classes and began a correspondence with Sigmund Freud that led Freud to submit a manuscript of Frankl's to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis. The article was accepted and later published. That same year, at age sixteen, Frankl attended an adult-education workshop on philosophy. The instructor, recognizing Frankl's precocious intellect, invited him to give a lecture on the meaning of life. Frankl told the audience that "It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence." This belief became the cornerstone of Frankl's personal life and professional identity." (pgs. 155-156.)
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Peace,
Everett "Skip" Jenkins
Fairfield, California
November 22, 2024
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