JOSEPH B. FABRY 1909-1999 Joseph Fabry ( 1909-1999) Joseph Fabry, the founder, the former Executive Director and President of the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy, and Editor of The International Forum for Logo therapy, died on May 7, 1999 of congestive heart failure. Joe was born in Vienna, Austria where he earned his law degree from the University of Vienna. Being Jewish, he had to flee from persecution of the Nazis. He reached Belgium where he was placed in a detention camp. From there he went to England and then came to the United States in 1938. During World War 11, Joe lost his family in Nazi concentration camps. Shortly after his arrival In New York, a mutual friend introduced him to Judith, who became his wife two months after they met. Joe worked as a scriptwriter for the Office of War Information (later the Voice of America). Joe and Judith moved to Berkeley in 1940 at the invitation of Max Knight, a childhood friend and a senior editor at the University of California Press. At UC Berkeley, Joe worked as an editor on several university publications until his retirement in 1972. Joe and Max collaborated for many years under the joint pen name of Peter Fabrizius. The story of this collaboration is told in their Book One and One Make Three. Attending a lecture by Viktor Frankl at the Unitarian Church of Berkeley in 1965 changed his perspective and resulted in Joe's second career. Fascinated by logotherapy, Joe studied and worked in close harmony with Viktor Frankl, establishing a close friendship that lasted until Frankl's death in 1998. According to Joe's son, Richard, logotherapy gave Joe a new focus. He began not asking, "Why has this happened to me?" but "Now that it has, what should I do about it?" Joe became the spokesman for logotherapy in North America, eventually establishing the Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy and editing the International Forum. Joe wrote and translated many books and articles on logotherapy, including The Pursuit of Meaning, which was translated into nine languages. He edited Logotherapy in Action and Logotherapy in Sharing Groups. With his wife, Judith, Joe translated Viktor Frankl's autobiography Reflections. For this work and the promotion of logotherapy, which became known in Europe as "The third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," Joe was awarded the Golden Cross of Honor by the Republic of Austria. Joe was particularly interested that logotherapy become available to the layperson. With that in view, he subsequently wrote Guideposts to Meaning, a way of "discovering what really matters." Joe's contribution to both the theoretical and practical aspects of logotherapy was manifold. He helped bring together interested people from around the world to meet at the first World Congress of Logotherapy, which now meets every two years, the most recent of which took place in Dallas, Texas in June 1999. Joe, a man of vision, determination, and purpose, was an inspiration for many. He was a man of profound knowledge, understanding, and many talents. He painted, edited, wrote, translated, and taught. His understanding of logotherapy, his boundless capacity for friendship, his generosity for sharing and giving of himself to the Institute and to the organizations of his choice, reflect his capacity, despite adversity, to not dwell on the past but to be future oriented. The titles of his unpublished manuscripts reflect his on-going search for meaning based on the principles and philosophy of logotherapy. He was tireless in his devotion to promote better understanding and harmony. The titles of some of his unpublished manuscripts include: The Past Ahead -A personal Search for the "Real God"; Reality Check of God -The Spirit in the Horizontal Society; Divinity and the Meaningful -Life Spirituality in a Horizontal Society; Happy Endings. His legacy to the Viktor Frankl Institute and to all of us is the sharing of knowledge and interest in logotherapy. The Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy has lost its founder but not his inspirations nor his contributions. Joe is survived by Judith, his wife of 58 years, his two children, Claire Bradley and Richard Fabry, and two grandchildren, Heidi and Shala Bradley. We close with an appreciation of Joseph Fabry, a man whose quest for meaning has made our lives more meaningful. Bianca Z. Hirsch, President emeritus Viktor Frankl Institute of Logotherapy ,. "' ", 'V ; \ .·· I:{' •. Joe Fabry-1950, Joe's only relative (cousin) Irma Newman, Judith, Claire (in front on horse), Wendy. and Richard 68 The International Forum for Logotherapy, 1999 Memories of Joe Fabry 0<111 ~Joslyn Joe's main influence on me came in 1982 when I read his Pursuit of Meaning. It enabled me to find ba lance between my Unitarian years of spiritual growth and those which followed my "sparking the gap" to a very fundamental Christian faith. Both of these had fostered the intellectual and emotional aspects of my world view but the tension between the two was too much for me. Joe explained Frankl's affirmation of the bedrock reality and alluring mystery of the object of the faith of humankind. He also made clear how much freedom of and respect for both belief and honest doubt could be contained within one world view, namely Frankl's. I'm now a happily fulfilled United Methodist heretic. My experience of the Unitarian faith had been weak on the emotional side whereas my fundamental Christian faith, though profoundly positive in many ways, lacked the intellectual integrity and freedom my nature demanded, On a more personal note, Joe once told me that the loss of his daughter through murder (committed by a friend) helped him accept the murder of his parents (committed by Nazi strangers). This brief interchange occurred when we paired up during a workshop in which we were challenged to find some sort of positive meaning from our most negative and tragic experiences. 69 I used to let rnyself be haunted hy the Holocaust. I ,vould in~aginc mysclt a prisoner. "_going fe',•., , ~-,. ., ,. ,. ,.'..r~.·.•.:.,~.::}••.}}.•.\.;~::,-?.,::·;·'.·,·.·.}.••'.~.-·;_.~-'1:}. ~ ,:;'.,.:f,/:'.,·. ''~;' ~~~,:" \.•_,. '; ~ , :/·)~· '\> -1,r: