… trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen [literally: Nevertheless Saying Yes to Life] is a memoir by Viktor Frankl. It was translated into English as Man’s Search for Meaning.
Finished on: 17.2.2024

Content Note: holocaust

“Plot”:
In 1942, Viktor Frankl and his family were deported to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt and separated. Frankl, a physician and psychologist, spent the rest of the war in several concentration camps, and after being freed, he wrote this book abour his experiences, attempting to describe and explain how people dealt with being in this torturous state of exception. Most notably, he shows that it was possible to still find meaning despite all the senseless violence and cruelty around them.

… trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen is an impressive book that makes the horrors of the holocaust palpable, but is also a testament to the strongest, most beautiful sides that humanity has to offer.

I have had this book on my shelf for many years, but I never pushed myself to read it. But I have been also studying for the past few years to become a psychotherapist according to the teachings of Frankl (and his student Alfried Längle), so I found that it was finally time to tackle this book head on.

I am rather glad that I did so having already studied his theories because it gave my reading experience a second layer, although it certainly isn’t a book about psychological theories, or only in a very small part. The book is actually divided into two parts, the first half being the memoir, the second half consisting of a theater play that tries to bring everything to a more artistic point. I have to admit that the play didn’t work that well for me.

But the memoir offers some very interesting insights. Some of them confirmed what I suspected or heard from other sources – the special fervor for cruelty of prisoners turned guards, for example. Other things were stuff that I never heard in this way before. Frankl is not a particularly emotional writer, always trying to rationalize, explain, theorize to keep the horrors at bay. But they are there nevertheless and they make themselves felt.

But there is also always room for human warmth and kindness, even under the worst circumstances, and it is a thing of beauty that Frankl managed to notice and capture that part as well. It is in part this outlook that makes the book so very special – and that drew me to it, and to Frankl, in the first place.

Summarizing: important reading.