>It seems Frankl has been somewhat exposed/debunked. Would you believe he was at Auschwitz for only a few days, performed medical experiments on Jews himself
The Wikipedia link doesn't mention anything of the sort. And the other discussion just points to the same link / "proof".
On the contrary, it does mention that he helped save thousands of mental patients from the Nazis, and that he was held not just in Auschwitz, but in 4 camps (in which case, whether he was in Auschwitz just for "a few days" is irrelevant).
As for the "performed medical experiments on Jews himself", which makes him sound like Mengele, what he did was treat people including Jews who had attempted suicide. He used electroshock therapy and even lobotomy, but those widely used in the time, they weren't some nazi-like experiments (and up to the 1970s in the USA for example).
>and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false.
That's just what some other professor said in some papers. Not some definite rebuttal. You can find papers against anything...
I really loved Frankl's book as a teenager. I only learnt about his dark side, that the book was full of lies, recently. I didn't just read the wikipedia page, followed up the references, reading into several books that go into detail about it. The more you learn, the more disturbing and weird it gets. Yes in fact they do sound like disturbing Mengele-like experiments on people. His massive-bestseller book makes it sound like he was in Auschwitz for a long period, which is a total lie. (Did you read it? I can't imagine anyone who loved the book thinking it "irrelevant" whether he actually was at Auschwitz!)
edit: Gee, you're right about the wikpedia page! The controversy section has been entirely erased since I last looked! Very weird. Sorry about that. e.g. in April last year it looked like
Removed in April by, from their bio, "co-founder of the Viktor Frankl Institute of America. I was born in Vienna, Austria in 1974 and am the grandson of Viktor Frankl."
Oh thank you for finding that out. That sounds very fishy! It seems his grandson totally rewrote his page, including removing the long Controversy section. I'm not sure how that edit has been allowed to stand so long. (I put a comment on the talk page saying that just now.)
The Wikipedia link doesn't mention anything of the sort. And the other discussion just points to the same link / "proof".
On the contrary, it does mention that he helped save thousands of mental patients from the Nazis, and that he was held not just in Auschwitz, but in 4 camps (in which case, whether he was in Auschwitz just for "a few days" is irrelevant).
As for the "performed medical experiments on Jews himself", which makes him sound like Mengele, what he did was treat people including Jews who had attempted suicide. He used electroshock therapy and even lobotomy, but those widely used in the time, they weren't some nazi-like experiments (and up to the 1970s in the USA for example).
>and it appears his main thesis about attitude mattering above all else for survival in the camps is simply false.
That's just what some other professor said in some papers. Not some definite rebuttal. You can find papers against anything...