This past weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 10th International Conference on World War II, held in New Orleans and sponsored by the National WWII Museum. I was particularly interested in hearing and meeting one of the program speakers, Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed, the 2015 bestseller (since translated into 25 languages) …
Today marks the ninety-ninth anniversary of the Armistice, the end of fighting on the Western Front during World War I. [The formal end to the war did not occur until the Treaty of Versailles, signed June 28, 1919—or five years to the day when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated. The U.S. never ratified the Treaty, …
I have often wondered, and people have from time to time asked me, where Nansen came up with the title to his diary, Fra Dag til Dag (From Day to Day). Unfortunately, we may never know the answer. Even Odd Nansen’s eldest daughter Marit is unsure of its origins. Perhaps Nansen’s inspiration was quite prosaic: …
I’ve never felt younger!
I was awakened this morning by multiple messages on Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Gmail, LinkedIn, and carrier pigeon, each asking: “Have you seen today’s Google doodle?” So, I beat a hasty path to the font of all knowledge, and saw with my own eyes an intricate scene of a Viking ship sailing up a fjord, a …
In the history of the Holocaust, there are many somber anniversaries. I’ve written about a few, including the start of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto (here). On October 6, 1944, seventy-three years ago today, the talented songwriter and playwright Ilse Weber went to her death at Auschwitz, voluntarily accompanying the children she had cared for …
Earlier this month I embarked on my most ambitious book tour yet—a 13-day, 9-stop, 2,942-mile extravaganza that took me to four states (NY, NJ, PA and MD). Each stop was memorable in its own way. In Brooklyn (to address a Sons of Norway Lodge) I was able to visit the apartment building where Odd Nansen …
In the pre-dawn hours of September 1, 1939, Hitler’s armies, using a trumped-up pretext, invaded Poland, signaling the start of World War II in Europe. By the time the war ended 2,194 days later, on May 8, 1945, it represented the most catastrophic man-made event the world had ever known. I offer two quotes from …
One of the most enjoyable, and least expected, aspects of my involvement with Odd Nansen’s diary has been the people I have met along the way, many with some personal connection to Nansen’s experience. Those of you who have read the book and/or heard my presentations know that I heavily annotated the new edition of …
I recently saw, and enjoyed, the movie Dunkirk, written, co-produced and directed by Christopher Nolan. Surprisingly, it has proven to be both a commercial [$317 million receipts at last count] as well as critical success. I say surprisingly, since the film about a historical event has no main characters (unless you call the evacuation itself …
“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.
