“I believe it will be hard for posterity, indeed for other people at all, to grasp the depth of suffering and horror of which Auschwitz has been the frame. Still less will it be possible to understand those who have survived it. That they can remain human beings, think and feel like human beings. One …
Those reading my blogs know that I have a special affection for William L. Shirer (see here, here, and here). He, along with few others, such as William Dodd, American Ambassador to Germany (1933-1937), realized early on how deadly Hitler and Naziism would prove to be, and through his magnum opus, The Rise and Fall …
Today marks the 10th anniversary of the re-publication of From Day to Day. How do I put into words all that I have learned and experienced these past 10 years? All the people I have met? All the places I have visited, from Oslo to Seattle? All the memories I have collected? All the blogs, …
The two decades following the First World War saw many technological improvements in the art of warfare, perhaps none more pronounced than in the field of aviation. Gone were the days of fragile, slow, and relatively ineffectual biplanes and triplanes, replaced by much more lethal weapons, such as the Spitfire. First introduced in 1938 and …
Have you seen the movie “Nuremberg” staring Rami Malek, and Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring? It is a well-made movie, and worth seeing. To me, the most affecting scene comes late in the movie, when the prosecution shows actual film clips from liberated concentration camps. Piles of naked, emaciated, lifeless, bodies are shown being bulldozed …
Well, the 2026 Winter Olympics are now history. We’ve all had our share of experiencing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, as well as gravity-defying tricks, including 180s, 360s, and 540s, all performed forward, backward, and upside down. The U.S. performed well, earning a record-breaking 12 gold medals, including thrilling victories over …
In observance of the 81st anniversary of the first meeting of Odd Nansen and Tom Buergenthal, I am reprinting portions of a blog I first posted in 2016. On February 16, 1945, Odd Nansen, visiting a sick Norwegian friend in Revier [infirmary] III, Sachsenhausen, happened upon a young Jewish boy recovering from an operation. Nansen’s description of …
In the past few weeks much of the nation has been beset by unusually cold and snowy weather. In fact, this January was the coldest such month in the contiguous United States since 1988. Nearly everyone has been discomfited in one way or another. Even here in western North Carolina, the so-called Isothermal Belt, where …
Seventy-six years ago today, one of my favorite authors, Eric Blair, more commonly known by his pen name, George Orwell, died from complications of tuberculosis. He was only 46. His most important work, Nineteen Eighty-Four, had been published less than seven months earlier. To commemorate his death, I offer two of his quotations for consideration: …
On this day 84 years ago, two important events occurred simultaneously: Now, Odd Nansen didn’t know he was a hostage on January 13, 1942. He had merely been informed he needed to travel to Oslo “for questioning.” He was most likely not overly alarmed. He had once earlier been taken in for questioning, and released. …
“I want to thank Tim Boyce for this . . . . It would be lost to history if people like Tim Boyce did not devote the effort and time and expense–a good part of his life–to preserve the Odd Nansen story. It is a moving and gripping story. . . .”
–U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal
Hailed by The New Yorker as “among the most compelling documents to come out of the war,” From Day to Day is a World War II concentration camp diary—one of only a handful ever translated into English—secretly written by Odd Nansen, a Norwegian political prisoner. Arrested in January 1942, Nansen, son of polar explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen (Nobel Peace Prize 1922) was held captive for the duration of the war in various Nazi camps in Norway and Germany.
Nansen’s diary entries detail his palpable longing for his wife and family, his constantly frustrated hopes for release, the quiet strength and sometimes ugly prejudices of his fellow prisoners, and his horror at the especially barbaric treatment reserved for the Jews. The diary brilliantly illuminates Nansen’s daily struggle, not only to survive, but to preserve his sanity and maintain his humanity in a world engulfed by fear and hate.
First published in English in 1949, From Day to Day had been out of print for almost seventy years. The new edition contains entries and sketches never previously available in English. It also features a new introduction and extensive annotations by Timothy Boyce and a preface by Thomas Buergenthal, whose life (as a ten year-old) Nansen saved while in Sachsenhausen, later recounted in his own memoir A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy.
