The First Review Is In

Amy Scheibe reviewed From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps  for Jewish Quarterly, Spring 2016.

“More than anything, though, it is his moral outrage at anyone who dares to turn an eye away from the suffering of others—especially when that eye is his own—that makes this a timely reissue. By the end of the war, Nansen is poignantly aware of his entitled situation. The humanism he carries into the last camps finds expression mostly in words, as deeds would have ended in a most unfortunate way for both the man and this priceless chronicle.

From Day to Day breaks once again the heart of humanity—a “never forget” document that echoes with the ghostly voices of the murdered.”

To read the full review, click here.

Amy Scheibe (2016) From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi
Concentration Camps, Jewish Quarterly, 63:1, 82-82, DOI: 10.1080/0449010X.2016.1162464

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

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.