Today would have been the 95th birthday of my dear friend, Marit (Nansen) Greve. As I pointed out in the Acknowledgements section of From Day to Day, “To come to know Marit as I have is truly one of the unexpected, but deeply cherished, joys of this undertaking.” If anything, my admiration of, delight in, …
Eighty years ago today, Odd Nansen arrived at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, approximately twenty-five miles north of Berlin. After a practical joke went awry, and became a contest of wills between Nansen and head of the protective custody camp called Grini, located outside of Oslo, Norway, Nansen was informed by the Schutzhaftlagerführer: …
In his long and prolific career, Albert Einstein published over 300 scientific papers in addition to hundreds of books and articles. One of his most famous scientific papers, published on September 26, 1905, was “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Køper” or “On the Electro-dynamics of Moving Bodies.” We mere mortals know it (slightly) better as Einstein’s Special …
Today marks the 161st anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American military history. More Americans were killed or wounded—22,717–in a single day, September 17, 1862, than on any other day in any other war America has fought. General George B. McClelland, the ever-cautious, ever-methodical commander of the Union Army of the …
Not long ago I was introduced to an interesting blog called “Dairies of Note.” Having spent much time involved in a diary of note, I was intrigued by the blog writer’s approach: quote, on each calendar day, a different diary entry written by someone on that very day sometime in the past. It is quite …
Eighty-two years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill met (August 9-14, 1941) for the first time as heads of state. The two had met only once before—back in 1918, when Roosevelt was a young Assistant Secretary of the Navy and Churchill a young Member of Parliament. This new meeting would forever …
Last Thursday (July 27) was Peter Deinboll’s birthday. Were he still alive today he would be 108. Deinboll was born in Orkanger, Norway in 1915 and graduated from college in 1939 with a degree in chemical engineering. He fought for Norway following Germany’s invasion in April 1940, and, when Norway capitulated, he chose to escape …
Dear readers, some of you may recall my recent blog, and article (Rescuing Norway’s Gold), about Nazi Germany’s quest for gold, beginning with its seizure of Austria’s gold reserves following the Anschluss of 1938. Recently I read a book (War at Sea by James Delgado) which tells the history of naval warfare through the shipwrecks …
“Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.” Macbeth, Act V, Scene viii I first met Tom Buergenthal—or rather—he first met me, in January 2011. As my readers know, a year earlier I had purchased Tom’s newly published memoir, A Lucky Child, on an impulse. …
It is with deep sorrow that I write to inform you that my dear friend, Tom Buergenthal, died on Monday, May 29, 2023. He had just recently turned 89. Tom’s obituary can be found here. I am currently at a loss for words, but will write more soon.
“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.
