In Memoriam. Private D. Sutherland killed in Action in the German Trench, May 16, 1916, and the Others who Died. By E. A. Mackintosh So you were David’s father, And he was your only son, And the new-cut peats are rotting And the work is left undone. Because an old man weeping, Just an old …
When Mary Berg, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in April 2013 (exact date unknown), it appeared that her desire for lasting anonymity had succeeded. Her former editor, S.L. Shneiderman, had already died years before, in 1996. Susan Pentlin, who—against Mary’s wishes—prepared a reissue of Berg’s diary in 2006 (under the new title Mary Berg’s …
I have previously sketched the history of the Warsaw Ghetto: its formation in 1940 (here); the mass deportations of its inhabitants to death camps in 1942 (here); and the desperate uprising of its remaining inhabitants in 1943 (here); all as seen through the eyes of diarist Mary Berg. Berg was one of the very few …
“God, why do we have to suffer all this?” Diary of Mary Berg, June 15, 1943 I have previously written about the Warsaw Ghetto several times already—primarily as seen through the eyes of teenage diarist Mary Berg. Part I described the establishment of the Ghetto in September 1940; the lethal living conditions which consigned thousands …
If you were a Norwegian going to bed on the evening of April 8, 1940, you fell asleep in a country at peace with the world, and with the reasonable expectation that you would wake up the following morning in a country still at peace. After all, Norway was officially neutral in World War II, …
On this date in 1945, the Ohrdruf concentration camp was liberated. This is notable for three reasons: FIRST: Thomas Buergenthal’s father Mundek died in Ohrdruf just weeks earlier, on January 15, 1945. Tom and Mundek were separated in Auschwitz in late October, 1944, when Mundek was moved to Sachsenhausen, arriving there on October 26, 1944. …
Fiskerjente (fishergirl): That’s the pet name Odd Nansen gave to his firstborn child Marit. Odd was an avid fisherman, and Marit often accompanied him on his outings. That’s how Odd refers to her in his diary entry of November 8, 1944 (Marit’s birthday) while a prisoner in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. My dear friend Marit passed …
On this date in 1922 the Permanent Court of International Justice, a/k/a the World Court, officially opened. The need for a supranational body to resolve disputes between nations had been recognized—and proposed—as long ago as 1305. Nevertheless, it took the carnage of the First World War to provide the impetus for actually establishing such a …
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day—a time to commemorate the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. What better way to commemorate their memory than to celebrate one of the heroes of the Holocaust, who risked their lives to save the Jews and others. Question: How does an 18-year-old boy, whose formal education ended at …
In an earlier blog (here) I described the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto, and its partial liquidation beginning on July 22, 1942 and lasting until September 21, 1942, resulting in the deaths of 250,000—300,000 Jewish inhabitants, all as described in the diary of Mary Berg. By January 18, 1943, nearly four months had passed without …
“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.
