Odd Nansen’s diary entry of April 10, 1945, concerning the children of Bullenhuser Damm contained only one clue as to their identity—the reference to a young boy with pneumonia whose father was the head of the Rothschild Institute in Paris. This was Georges-André Kohn, and his father’s name was Armand Kohn. The elder Kohn cooperated with …
From Odd Nansen’s diary, Tuesday, April 10, 1945: “Today I went to see a band of Jewish children who are kept here [in Neuengamme concentration camp], as they were in Sachsenhausen—as guinea-pigs. At one end of the Revier [infirmary] hutments, with a concealed entrance, they live in a little room. There are ten boys and …
On Tuesday evening I shared the stage at Main Street Books, Davidson, NC, with Scott Denham, Charles A. Dana Professor of German Studies at Davidson College, to discuss Odd Nansen’s From Day to Day and the larger issue of representing the Holocaust. Scott observed that the Holocaust was a highly documented event. The Nazis were …
Recently I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Dean Karayanis of The History Author Show, which broadcasts on iHeart Radio. Dean, who has a special fondness for Norway, was impressed with Odd Nansen’s diary, and our interview covers a wide range of subjects related to the book, to Odd Nansen, and to my story …
Those who have been to my presentations, or have read my previous blog on the subject (here), know that I have always intended to give away any royalties from the sale of From Day to Day to a charity or charities that Nansen would have approved of. Without repeating all of my earlier blog, I …
Oh, I wish you all will be children again, with the right to love, to feel shining sun, to the joy each child can claim at birth, round cheeks and glances bright with mirth, the chance to eat, some this, some that, you poor children of Theresienstadt. (from Blue Hour at the Children’s Ward) Ilse …
On February 23, 2017, I had the good fortune to address an audience at the Nassau Presbyterian Church in Princeton, NJ. The event was co-sponsored by the church, the Princeton Public Library, the Princeton Clergy Association and The Jewish Center of Princeton. The audience was wonderful, and from varied backgrounds, including old classmates from Georgetown, …
Eigil Nansen, the second child of Odd and Kari Nansen, died last week, age 85. Eigil followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming an architect, and worked in his father’s architectural firm. More importantly, Eigil also followed down the humanitarian path his father (and grandfather Fridtjof Nansen) had blazed. In 1991 he was awarded the Lisle and Leo …
Recently I had the pleasure of addressing students, faculty and administrators at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) regarding Odd Nansen’s diary. The talk was co-sponsored by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission. Doctor Theresa (Tese) Stephens, PhD, MSN, RN, CNE, organized the talk in conjunction with a research project she has been undertaking with her PhD nursing …
Seventy-four years ago today, at 7:30pm, Odd Nansen was arrested. Held hostage for the ensuing forty months, he was only freed on April 28, 1945, ten days before the war ended. Nansen was arrested on a Tuesday, not a Friday, but he was well aware of the superstition. In his diary, commenting in 1944 …
“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.
