Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is being observed in the U.S. on Sunday, April 11. Viktor Frankl, who is better known today outside the Jewish community than within it, is an author who survived the Holocaust and whose most famous book has been published in 24 countries and sold 22 million copies, yet his book is not easily found at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Still, it remains surprising that an outstanding new biography, Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living that has been receiving national book awards* and that brings his work to a whole new generation of young people, was written by a seemingly unlikely author: a non-Jewish Albuquerque high school teacher:
Many school teachers dream of having a book published by a top publisher. Anna Redsand, raised by Christian Reformed missionary parents on the Navajo Reservation, has worked 37 years as an educator and counselor throughout New Mexico and is now Curriculum Director at Cesar Chavez Community School in Albuquerque. She is the author of “Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living,” a nationally award-winning biography of the world-famous Jewish psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.
Redsand attended schools at Teec Nos Pos and Shiprock and was also home-schooled, and at age nine began attending Rehoboth Mission School in Gallup. There her scholastic abilities stood out but this also made her a target. Not fitting in was a challenge to overcome that steered her towards a career in counseling and gave her empathy in helping students who she says are traumatized daily by societal conditions in New Mexico. Along the way she found that logotherapy, the approach developed by Frankl, was profoundly hopeful and useful, and began to apply it in her work. When she had to send one of her students to the hospital before he almost died from a drug overdose, she vowed to write a biography for young people so they would have direct access to Frankl’s teachings.
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By Anna S. Redsand
Clarion Books (A Houghton Mifflin Company) $19.00
school and supersaver discounts available
“The story of Viktor Frankl is so powerfully hopeful that it can inspire you to find meaning in your own life despite tragedy,” Redsand explained in an interview at her Albuquerque home. “It’s also a lot about resilience.”
One key to resilience that Frankl taught is forgiveness. “Holding onto resentments just makes it harder to find meaning in your life,” Redsand learned. Frankl refused to condemn the German people collectively for the Holocaust. He said that he saw only two types of individuals in the world, those who were kind and those who were sadistic, and they each could be found everywhere.
Frankl was a neurosurgeon and psychiatrist in Vienna in the 1930’s as Hitler and the Nazi party came to power. He had the audacity to challenge the authority of Sigmund Freud by developing an approach that was more practical: he got his patients to move out of depression not by talking about their early childhood, but by looking outside themselves towards something larger than themselves to care about to find meaning to their lives. For example, he told his depressed, often unemployed patients, for whom it could be a daily challenge simply to get out of bed, to go find meaningful volunteer work – during the Great Depression that gripped Europe.
In 1942, as all Jews still in Vienna were being deported for Hitler’s “final solution,” Frankl, who had passed up a chance to escape to America and instead had chosen to stay in Vienna to help his parents, shared the fate of virtually all the Jews of Europe, who were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to death camps. But he went on to survive four concentration camps, including Auschwitz, over a two and a half year period.
Holding the vision that one day he would be reunited with his wifeTillie kept him going through torture, starvation, and even typhus. After the war he found out that his wife had indeed survived the Bergen-Belsen death camp, only to perish days after it was liberated. He almost succumbed to suicide himself then, but remembered there was a reason he had survived: to let others know how to keep going in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds and unbearable tragedies. In a brief fevered nine days he wrote a slender book of what it was like to be in a concentration camp, “Man’s Search for Meaning.”
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Redsand with her daughter Cheyenne photo (c) 2010 Diane J. Schmidt
Redsand’s biography brings to life with photos and biographical stories the many messages and teachings embedded in "Man's Search for Meaning," which in 65 years has been published around the globe and continues to sell millions of copies. Frankl would always look for humor and make up funny situations with fellow prisoners about the brutal absurdities they faced. He said that we should always be asking - what is life asking of me? not, what is life going to give me? He acknowledged that things are not always within our control, but that we always have choices, even to face our own death with dignity and faith.
Frankl’s existential approach shares an affinity with the newer cognitive-behavioral therapy, now endorsed by the National Institutes of Mental Health as effective therapy for depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Yet Frankl also recognized there is something that is greater than ourselves that transcends our isolated individualities. This is beyond the structures of scientific rationality and cognitive therapy and gives his approach a broader appeal, as does another Western approach, Jungian therapy, founded by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung.
Redsand wrote the biography and found a publisher for it over a period of 5 years while raising a teenage daughter as a single mother and working in the public schools. Redsand, who will retire this summer, has already begun work on her next book, about missionaries, and will now have more time to offer her popular workshops. Her website gives details and her contact information, at http://annaredsand.com. She welcomes opportunities to come to Gallup, where her brother Dr. Richard Kruis is an ER physician with GIMC.
“Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living” is an accessible, remarkable and important book that belongs in all school curriculums grades 4-12 and college. Redsand ended her interview by cheerfully saying, “Whenever I get depressed, I often think, WWVD – What would Viktor do?”
A print version of this article appeared in the April 10-11, 2010 Gallup Independent newspaper, where Diane Schmidt is a regular contributor to the Gallup Independent's Spiritual Perspectives column.
Other books on the Holocaust on my bookshelf: "Night" by Elie Wiesel; "The Painted Bird" by Jerzy Kosinski; "The Judeo-Christian Fiction" by Gershon Winkler; "Maus" by Art Speigelman; also, recommended films include "Night and Fog" and "The Pianist"'. An extensive reference list is at the internet site: Wikipedia, The Holocaust in Art and Literature.
* Awards received by Anna Redsand for "Viktor Frankl: A Life Worth Living" include: Society of School Librarians International, the National Council for the Social Studies, the Children's Book Council, Bank Street Best Children's Books, and the New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age. The book has been translated into Korean.
Comments
Thank you! For a wonderful look at two amazing people. And much information I didn't know.
A truly excellent column.
Great review! Doing something different that helps others including animals or plants and trees often makes me feel good when I feel down. Frankl's approach to helping others is very good. Thanks for bringing light upon an important subject and wonderful people in the world today.
Man's Search for Meaning is a timeless treasure with greatly important messages to all of us who have even felt 'enslaved'. Anna Redsand is a blessing and I'm so glad you reviewed her book.
I remember how important and meaningful it was for me to discover Frankl. I'm very glad you are calling attention to new work that will mke tjhis information accessible to a new generation. Thanks Diane and thanks Anna!
The perfect book for my grandson, who wants to know about his Jewish heritage. Thank you for an article that highlights how all people of integrity are the "Chosen People." Brava for your fascinating article.
I loved Anna's book. Read it in on sitting. The review is excellent and gives me new insights about the Author, which for me might be surprising...she's my sister!
The review which synthesizes the Author Anna Redsand's life and Viktor Frankl's life, and philosophy is well done. Anna grew up between two cultures and two languages Navajo and Dutch American. She was also read to as a child, this has contributed to her facility and love for language. She was raised with parents who spent a large part of their lives living "for others", and so she has been vested with great qualities that come out in her choice of Viktor Frankl to biograph. He shares with Anna a desire to invest life with hope.
I appreciated the in depth look at this amazing book and its equally amazing author.
Great interview! I love Frankl's focus on:
1. Finding meaning by looking outside of ourselves and helping others.
2. The power of forgiveness, and letting go of resentments.
3. And the power of humor.
T
Great article!
I greatly enjoyed this well-written review. It certainly whetted my appetite for the book, and I hope I'll have an opportunity to read it. Frankl certainly must have been an amazing man.
As a mother of two middle school students, I'm eager to find anything that will help them navigate the emotional challenges now and ahead in their lives. I have read her book, and it's wonderful. Now it's time to read the book with my children.
The article was informative and interesting. Thank you.
Wonderful article and book. The book is inspiring for anyone to read, not only teenagers.
Thanks for reminding me of Frankl's thesis about finding a passion to live for.
Truly, a great story told here. Thank you!
Great article - captures Frankl's heart and Anna's heart for people. I love you Anna - you are a blessing!
Thank you for the excellent article on Anna's book. It is an excellent book and she is an inspiration to everyone who works with her.
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