Viktor E. Frankl und der Holocaust

Authors

• Risto Nurmela Åbo akademi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30752/nj.69574

Keywords:

Frankl, Viktor Emil, Jewish literature, Austrian literature, Jewish authors, Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Survivors, Concentration camps

Abstract

Viktor Frankl was born in a Jewish family in Vienna in 1905. He lived in the city until 1942, when he was deported to a concentration camp. His parents, wife, brother and sister-in-law were killed during the Holocaust&&he himself survived and returned to Vienna. In his well-known work, Man’s Search for Meaning, he describes the concentration camps from the perspective of psychology. However, the focus of this article is his other works, which primarily do not touch on the Holocaust. Frankl elaborated his most central thoughts on the meaning of life already in the 1930s and said that these were challenged in the concentration camp. As an observant Jew – probably his conviction grew due to the Holocaust – he emphasized that Holocaust taught its victims to believe in God rather than made them leave their belief.