Name: 1945 – The movie It’s a Wonderful Life premieres in New York City.
Start: 2026-12-20T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-12-20T23:59:59-05:00

1944 – Fritz Pfeffer (shared the secret annex with Anne Frank) dies in Neuengamme concentration camp.

December 20 1944 – Fritz Pfeffer (shared the secret annex with Anne Frank) dies in Neuengamme concentration camp.

From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps

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“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.

December 2026

1961 – Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Holocaust, sentenced to death.

1791 – Bill of Rights Ratified

1944 – Battle of the Bulge: Hitler launches Ardennes offensive

1773 – Boston Tea Party

1858 – Odd Nansen’s mother, Eva Sars was born.

1942 – Allies issue joint declaration against extermination of the Jews

1903 – First Powered Flight at Kitty Hawk, NC

Institute for Holocaust Education, Omaha, NE (Virtual)

1865 – The 13th Amendment, Abolishing Slavery, Goes Into Effect

1843 – Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol First Published

1944 – Fritz Pfeffer (shared the secret annex with Anne Frank) dies in Neuengamme concentration camp.

1945 – The movie It’s a Wonderful Life premieres in New York City.

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December 2026

From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps