Writing blogs about World War II (or even current events for that matter) can be a dispiriting enterprise at times. So much fear, anger, hate and death. And for what? I’ve tried on occasion to keep things a bit lighter by writing about such topics as oatmeal raisin cookies, cinnamon crullers, fish, and even Minnesota. …
On this date in 1942, John Steinbeck’s short wartime novel The Moon Is Down, was published. Composed quickly in late 1941, the work is set in an unnamed foreign country—one that looks an awful lot like Norway, that is suddenly invaded by an unnamed army—one that looks an awful lot like Germany’s. Steinbeck’s purpose was …
Odd Nansen’s Diary, March 6, 1943: “The news was excellent—but still with no essential points. There has been sabotage in Vemork. The heavy-water works are destroyed. Four Norwegian-speaking men in English uniform got away. . . . Yes, there are a few things going on—that one must admit.” Seventy-nine years ago tonight, nine British-trained Norwegian …
Last week’s blog produced so many responses I’ve decided to do it again! Q: Did Germany participate in the 1952 Winter Olympics? A: Yes The question of Germany’s participation in the 1952 Games, so soon after the end of the worst conflagration in history, generated strong feelings, both pro and con. According to Tom Buergenthal, …
Q: Who lit the Olympic Torch to start the 1952 Winter Olympics? A: Eigil Nansen, Odd Nansen’s eldest son, lit the Olympic Torch. Eigil, then 20 years old, was “ordered” to carry the torch “by my father” he once confessed in an interview. In fact, he was chosen by the Oslo Olympic Organizing Committee. In …
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It is appropriate for each of us to remember the millions of innocent men, women and children slaughtered in pursuit of a crackpot racial idea. The Nazi’s murderous scheme did not originate full blown from Adolf Hitler’s fevered imagination. The history of anti-Semitism is long and tortuous, nor was …
Eighty years ago today, three officials—two German, one Norwegian—approached a small cabin in snowy East Gausdal, Norway, and informed Odd Nansen that he was wanted for questioning in Oslo. In fact, he was part of a round-up ordered by the German overseer of Norway, Reichskommissar Josef Terboven. That very night Nansen began his prison diary. His …
Yesterday, as is my custom, I took my dogs Trina and Joni out for their morning constitutional as soon as I got up. (Actually, it’s the dogs’ custom—they’ve trained me, not the other way around.) The air was crisp, the sky a deep blue, the sun just peeking over the horizon, a frost lay …
Let’s face it: 2021 was not the year most of us will remember fondly. The fears, the disrupted plans, the false dawns. Yes, 2021 is best left behind as soon as possible. But even at the end of a bad year there are always a few bright spots worth noting. I. A Mother and Child …
Eighty years ago today the Empire of Japan attacked American forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Even today, eighty years later, the words “December 7” and “Pearl Harbor” generate strong emotions. To use the words of one of my favorite authors, William Manchester, it was an event “which, in retrospect, seems to have been a kind …
“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.
