JONATHAN Shaw, Head of King’s Ely Senior, hosted our first History Café of the Lent Term on January 12th.
History Café is a regular talk and get-together for our Senior Historians, and Mr Shaw began by giving students an overview of Viktor Frankl’s life before the war.
Colin Currie, Head of History at King’s Ely Senior, said: “Frankl went on to study Medicine at Vienna, becoming a celebrated Neurologist and Psychiatrist. In 1942, he and his wife, Tilly, were deported to Terezin Ghetto, north of Prague, and in 1944 he and his family were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp; Viktor was the only one of them to survive.
“What was most interesting and inspiring to hear about were the lessons that Viktor drew from his experience, which he shared in a series of public lectures which have come to be known as ‘Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything’. Perhaps the most pertinent of the lessons was Frankl’s assertion that even once we have been stripped of all else, the ability to choose one’s attitude is the last of the human freedoms.
“I’d like to thank Mr Shaw for his excellent and inspiring talk.”
The next History Café will be on January 16th, with Mr Lowery presenting on ‘The War of the Currents’.