Guiding us all through endless night
A student of Freud, a genius too
Hated by the Nazis
Because he was a Jew
Imprisoned for years
He longed to be free
Five years, what a test of his psychiatry.
In Auschwitz he mixed
With German and Jew
Jehovahs, Gypsies
Where survival each day
Tested all that he knew.
He learned about mankind
And found two basic strands
The decent and indecent
Whatever their lands
The prisoners who turned Capo
And betrayed their friends
The German who risked life
To make some amends
He talks of the Jews
At liberation time
Who asked the allies to pardon
The Commandant for his crimes
Because of the compassion
He showed to them over time
He left when the Allies opened the gates
And all of the inmates with wonder they shook
The hands of the soldiers who saved their dire fate
In his mind Viktor had already
Written his book.
He called it Logotherapy,
Mans Search for Meaning
Where Freud saw that sex
Was what drove us on
He said we need meaning
To feel we belong.
He spoke of the see-saw
Between living and dying
Of Thanatos and Eros
Within each human mind, vying
To kill us or save us
Whatever the cost
And he said, if we have no meaning
The battle is lost.
Stephen Loomes
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/viktor-frankl-mans-search-for-meaning/
