Two (2) days hence—January 13—marks the 83rd anniversary of Odd Nansen’s arrest at the hands of the Nazis. It would be the start of a 39-month saga, involving incarceration in jails, police detention camps, work camps and two concentration camps. What better way to commemorate that event than by watching a new Norwegian film, now …
As we close the books on 2024, and, in the words of Odd Nansen, “fix our hopes, our burning wishes and our ache of longing on the new year,” I would like to thank the many people who aided me this year in furthering the awareness of Odd Nansen’s inspiring diary. Whether by inviting me …
Today marks the 78th anniversary of the first screening of one of my favorite films, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. Originally slated to be released in January 1947, the movie’s premier was moved up to December 20, 1946 in order to qualify for that year’s Academy Awards. Although nominated in five categories, including Best …
“Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of 13th century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for our victories …
Hiltgunt Zassenhaus died 20 years ago today (November 20, 2004), age 88, in Baltimore, MD. Born in Hamburg, Germany, Zassenhaus was employed by the Nazi regime throughout World War II, including by the feared Department of Justice. Despite that, she is the only German ever to be awarded Norway’s Order of St. Olav, given as …
Eighty years ago today Raoul Wallenberg, a 31 year-old architect, businessman, diplomat and humanitarian, arrived in Budapest, Hungary. He had been recruited and appointed to the Swedish legation in Budapest to lead a rescue operation for Hungary’s beleaguered Jews who were then being deported to extermination camps in Germany. [Hungary, a one-time ally of Germany, …
“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” (Remarks given in a graduation speech by politician, abolitionist, and social reformer Horace Mann, founder, in 1852, and first president, of Antioch College, and subsequently observed as the school’s motto.) Odd Nansen, who died 51 years ago today, may never have heard of …
Eighty years ago today, the largest amphibious assault ever undertaken, Operation Overlord, began. In retrospect, events like D-Day increasingly to take on an aura of historical inevitability. It seems inevitable that the massive Allied landings would succeed, inevitable that the second front would be established, inevitable that Germany’s demise would ultimately follow. It had to …
“They’re bombing and bombing, more and more and oftener and oftener.” Odd Nansen’s Diary April 12, 1944 Sachsenhausen Odd Nansen wasn’t exaggerating when he wrote the above diary entry. The Allied bombing effort over Germany had gone from a trickle in the early years of the war to a deluge by 1944. The combined RAF …
On this date, 129 years ago (also a Sunday), Fridtjof Nansen (Odd Nansen’s father), along with Nansen’s companion, Hjalmar Johansen, reached a point, in Johansen’s words, “most northerly that any human foot had ever trod.” They had arrived at 86°14’ north latitude, besting the previous record, set 13 years earlier, by almost 200 miles. Nansen …
“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.
