Odd Nansen died 52 years ago yesterday. He was 71. Every year on the anniversary of his death I write about some aspect of his life and personality. As a prisoner, Nansen faced, and overcame, challenges that we, in our pampered, postwar lives, can scarcely imagine. But Nansen might not have been able to make …
I’m a big believer in serendipity (which I have previously written about here, here and here). After all, it was serendipity that brought Odd Nansen and Thomas Buergenthal together in Revier #3 in Sachsenhausen, where Tom was recovering from surgery and one of Nansen’s friends was also receiving treatment. Tom could just as easily have …
On Memorial Day, we remember those who died while serving in our armed forces. Few people today can recall that the first US serviceman to die in World War II was killed—in Norway. Robert M. Losey was born in Andrew, Iowa in 1908, graduated from West Point in 1929 and received his wings in the …
Today marks the 80th anniversary of VE Day, the official end of World War II in Europe. Eight days earlier (April 30, 1945) Adolf Hitler had killed himself in his underground bunker, where he had spent his final 104 days, unable to confront the ignominious end of his regime. Just four years prior (May 4, …
Today marks the ninth anniversary of the republication of From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps. When From Day to Day first appeared in English in 1949 it garnered rave reviews, from the likes of William L. Shirer (New York Herald Tribune); Anne Goodman (New Republic); Alfred Werner (New …
Seeing as how today marks the 250th anniversary of the British march on Lexington and Concord, I thought I’d leave World War II and the Holocaust alone for today and focus on the American Revolution. The older I get, the more amazed I am at the longevity of our Founding Fathers. Without vitamins, supplements, prescription …
Eighty years ago today, elements of the British 11th Armoured Division liberated Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. (I’ve written about the liberation of Sachsenhausen (here), Auschwitz (here) and Ohrdruf (here)). What those members beheld upon entering the camp not even Dante, in his wildest imaginings, could have conjured up. Over 10,000 unburied, rotting, corpses littered the camp. …
How does a B-24 Liberator bomber, weighing up to 32 tons and having a wingspan of 110 feet, together with a crew of nine, simply vanish . . . . and on its maiden flight no less? Eighty-two years ago today, a B-24 christened Lady Be Good (named after a 1941 musical film starring Lionel …
Sometimes courage can be found in the most unexpected circumstances. The date: August 1944 The place: Fresnes Prison, located on the outskirts of Paris The cast: 168 captured Allied airmen (82 American; 48 British; 26 Canadian; 9 Australian; 2 New Zealand; I Jamaican) By August 1944 the Fresnes Prison held, along with members of the …
“Yesterday [was] . . . one of the heaviest raids we have ever witnessed. It was on Oranienburg, and camps and buildings in the immediate neighborhood of Sachsenhausen were leveled to the ground. From the moment the first bombs dropped, we realized that this was more our concern than usual. For in general we’ve gotten …
“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.
