Most of my blog readers already know of my friend Siri Svae Fenson. Previously I had written about her uncle, Hjalmar Svae, described by Odd Nansen as “a fine type of Norwegian patriot.” Svae, along with two other Norwegians, had attempted to escape to Great Britain from Norway in a stolen German motorboat in August …
Odd Nansen died 45 years ago today, on June 27, 1973, age 71. I always feel that the anniversary of his death is an appropriate time to memorialize his life, and to try and draw lessons from it. Although Nansen wrote several books during his lifetime, his sole “porthole” through which we English speakers can …
Well, the great Northwest Pacific book tour of 2018 is now officially in the record books. A 5-city, 24-day, 31-appearance extravaganza officially ended when I landed in Charlotte Douglas International Airport at 6:05 am this morning from my red eye flight from Portland, OR. The trip was a success on so many levels—presentations made, …
Fridtjof Nansen, father of Odd Nansen, polar explorer, statesman, humanitarian, died eighty-eight years ago today, age 68. I have written previously about Fridtjof Nansen (here). I also recently wrote about my forthcoming lecture at the 23rd annual Raoul Wallenberg memorial dinner at the Nordic Museum in Seattle on June 7 (here). In preparing for my …
I am pleased to announce that the Spring 2018 issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History features excerpts from Odd Nansen’s diary, From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps. A copy of the excerpt can be found here. The excerpts cover a short window in time, from …
I was pleasantly surprised recently when I learned from my publisher, Vanderbilt University Press, that they had ordered a second printing of From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps. Vanderbilt originally expected the initial printing would take up to three years (or until May 2019) to sell out, so …
Those of you who have read From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps know that on page 433 is an illustration drawn by Odd Nansen, a birthday card for his close friend, Erik Magelssen. As Nansen explained in the diary, in order to stay in the same work squad …
On this day in 1942, three officials—two German, one Norwegian—approached a small cabin in snowy East Gausdal, Norway, and informed Odd Nansen that he was wanted for questioning in Oslo. In fact, he was part of a round-up ordered by the German overseer of Norway, Reichskommissar Josef Terboven. That very night Nansen began his prison diary. …
So the Bomb Cyclone has come and gone, leaving a Polar Vortex in its wake. Did you survive it? Unborn generations will be asking us in future years how we coped. At the very least, the storm stranded thousands of passengers, shut down government services along the East Coast, provided a few days off from …
“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.
