By Geri Marr Burdman

While studying at the University of Puerto Rico in the late 1960s, I jumped at a life-altering opportunity when I learned that Dr. Viktor Frankl had traveled from his home in Austria to offer a series of seminars. Dashing between classes on the hibiscus-laden campus, I paused to scan some ads on a cluttered bulletin board. A hand-written note caught my eye:

Dr. Viktor Frankl
Author of Man’s Search for Meaning
Presenting a seminar for faculty and graduate
students at UPR today at 4PM

I seized the opportunity to attend that seminar, but little did I know I would walk into such a significant event. I arrived at the door just in time to catch a glimpse of the bespectacled, sprightly Viktor Frankl striding confidently toward the mahogany podium as a palpable hush came over the room. Without hesitation, he began to speak in a serene, resolute voice about his life’s work and the unspeakable suffering he and his loved ones had endured at the hands of the Nazis. His wife, mother, father, brother, sister-in-law and mother-in-law—along with six million Jews and fifteen million others—perished in the concentration camps.