Among the most influential figures in the history of twentieth century Nazism and World War II, there is perhaps none who has had a more varied career than that of the man known as Viktor Frankl. Born in Buenos Aires, Frankl lived for most of his early years in Jewish concentration camps. He was arrested as part of an anti-Fritz concentration during the Second World War and later worked as a translator and political activist before ultimately working to help free concentration camp inmates. His life’s work ultimately earned him the title of “the Last Rightful Owner of the Last Seven Stories of Christ”.
Upon his return from the camps, Frankl set about establishing a monastery on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. There he established what was to become the center of a vast network of underground cells where he hoped to create a defense against any possibility of an uprising by the creatively restless concentration camp inmates. On the night of February 14th, however, it became suddenly clear that one of his cells had been empty for three days. As it happened, another inmate, a survivor of the camp, had sneaked out to deliver his letter of deliverance and to see if there was anyone else who could use the facility.
Frightened and suspicious, the Old Man set off in search of his companion. On the way, he came across a pale, apparently dead man. Unaware of what he was, Frankl asked the man for directions. The man said that he could not remember but that he could see a figure emerging from a crevasse near the man’s cell, walking rapidly away.
The next morning, Frankl found the skull of his deceased friend near the crevasse. Realizing that the man was not the survivor mentioned in his letter, he felt a sense of peace take over him. Slowly overcome by curiosity, he examined the body. In the corner of the skull, he discovered the name written in a neat and precise handwriting: Adolf Hitler.
Was this really the truth? Or was it a fabrication of a disturbed imagination? It is difficult to say. Whatever the real story might be, there is no doubt that the image of the prisoner on the cross-hatched casket helped to create the image of the leader of the German National socialism party. And this was hardly surprising as the Third Reich was at the time a government that believed in the principle of death and suffering for Germans and the necessity to exterminate millions of Jews. It was bound to implant in minds the idea of a massive extermination program.
There are many theories about how the camp guard and the inmates came to meet. Some say they were just some drunkards at the camp bar who happened to bump into each other at a dead end. Others say that the prisoner and the guard slept together in a room adjacent to the showers and that in the middle of the night, the guard was woken by the sound of the sleeping prisoner and went to check on him. Perhaps, in the confusion, he did not notice the writing on the casket. He finally took the body from the cage and brought it to the camp crematorium where, apparently, the cremation took place without further incident.
It was probably some weeks later when news of the camp spread among the SS troops that the true story of how the body came to be in the camp bunkhouse would come to light. At first, there would be denials from the higher officials about the possibility of a prisoner having mixed with the camp inmates. Then, with time, more stories would surface that would suggest the possibility of the prisoner having been present at the camp cemeteries and then having been shot by the camp guards and killed by the camp inmates. The denials would only last as long as it took the bodies to be buried in the numerous mass graves which were built during the period of the World War II.
Finally, there were the survivors of the camp who were interviewed and some of them said they had actually heard of the meeting of Vito Frankl and Anton Hitler in which Hitler supposedly threatened him that, should he escape from the camp, the SS guards and Cossacks would find him and kill him and his family. Others said they did hear the conversation but were not sure of its content or had not understood what had taken place. Still others maintained that they never heard any discussion of such a matter taking place while they were in the camp, and that their grandmother had told them the story years ago of how her grandfather had died in the concentration camp where she was staying, yet none of those stories contained any details whatsoever about the conversation or its outcome.