Two books I read in 1987 helped me understand how beliefs influence our worldview. We could argue that believing is seeing rather than the standard view that we form conclusions based on what our senses tell us (seeing is believing). Life becomes an interpretation based on our beliefs and values. Both authors were educated Jews who endured similar experiences in concentration camps during WW2. Yet they came to different conclusions based on those experiences.

In February 1944 Primo Levi (1919-1987), a chemist, was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Of the 650 Italian Jews in his group only 20 were alive when Russian soldiers liberated the camp 11 months later. Levi published If This Be A Man in Italian in 1947. It received global acclaim when translated into English and German in 1959. Levi wrote about the evil nature of the Germans he experienced in the concentration camp. The book remains an indictment of humanity. Some biographers suggest he committed suicide because of despair, though other commentators disagree.

Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) survived several concentration camps, including Auschwitz, between September 1942 and April 1945. He was an Austrian psychiatrist, and he published Man’s Search for Meaningin German in 1946. The English translation appeared the same year as Levi’s book in 1959. Frankl wrote about finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most sordid. One English translation of the original German title is “Saying yes to life in spite of everything”. Frankl’s book outlines one of the greatest discoveries of the twentieth century: It is not what happens to us that matters but how we interpret and react to what happens.