The Holocaust proved to be among the most recoiled events in European history. Based on their religious beliefs, three-quarter of the European Jewish population was executed and hence the emergence of strong and witted religious voices such as those of Martin Buber and Levinas. This text, therefore, aims at evaluating Buber's, Levinas’s, and Wiesel's perspective with regards to finding meaning after the Holocaust and how their opinions differ with those of Frankl. While numerous philosophers and the general public questioned their faith in God and humanity, specific philosophers such as Buber, according to Greenberg (2018), found that it is possible to experience the meaning of life provided it is centered on relationships such as those developed between an individual with another or an individual with nature.
Levinas consequently agreed with Buber and extended his belief by emphasizing on the need for love between relationships as this was where true meaning was found. Wiesel, while not agreeing to the latter's philosophers’ points of view with regards to the relationship between man and God, found that he shared a common belief with them as he believes that meaning is found solely in relationships among people (Roth,2015). Frankl, on the other hand, believed that meaning was found in freedom and other elements such as responsibility and suffering. These terms have significant meaning to the author as he found that individuals have the choice of freedom even in situations such as his experiences in the concentration camps.
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Frankl believed that despite those circumstances, an individual has the freedom to determine how he would react while suffering was unique for each individual based on differences in perceptions (Vincent, 2017). Responsibility consequently refers to the ability of an individual to find meaning. This text finds that the fact that both Wiesel and Frankl endured concentration camps gives greater resonance to their beliefs and views with regards to where meaning can be found based on the experiences they went through. In conclusion, this essay has evaluated the scholars' perceptions and finds that there is greater strength to the argument presented by Wiesel and Frankl.
References
Greenberg, I. (2018). Elie Wiesel: Teacher, Mentor, and Friend . Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Roth, J. K. (2015). The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities . Oxford University Press, USA.
Vincent, C. P. (2017). Viktor Frankl's Search for Meaning: An Emblematic 20th-Century lif, Timothy Pytell.
