Was Holocaust Survivor Viktor Frankl Gassed at Auschwitz?
Theodore J. O’Keefe ? The Journal for Historical Review 2001 A recent article has revealed that Viktor Frankl, the famous psychiatrist and emblematic Auschwitz survivor, greatly embroidered on his meager time at Auschwitz. This news casts a shadow over the veracity of Frankl’s famous memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning. Of even more interest, however, is a question that arises when considering the Auschwitz State Museum’s records regarding Frankl’s time at Birkenau: Was Viktor Frankl gassed at Auschwitz? Few men who emerged from the camps can match the late Viktor Frankl for acclaim. A psychiatrist from Vienna who died in 1997, Frankl gained international renown for the theories of mental health he expounded through his psychiatric school, logotherapy. Inextricably bound up with Frankl’s fame, teachings, and moral authority was his experience of the German concentration camps, above all Auschwitz, as described in Man’s Search for Meaning (U.S., 1959) a worldwide bestseller that has been r
