“[But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten.] But love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a …
Three years ago today my dear friend Marit Greve, eldest child of Odd and Kari Nansen, and granddaughter of Fridtjof Nansen, died. She was 92 years old. Those of you who have heard my presentation on Odd Nansen’s diary know that Marit is only briefly mentioned; however, she played a key part …
Boxing Day, December 26, also known as St. Stephens Day, originated in Great Britain, but is observed in many other European countries, including Norway. Boxing Day 1941 must have been a dispiriting day indeed. Germany had overrun practically all of Europe, and was all but poised to defeat the Soviet Union. The United States had …
Today marks the 122nd anniversary of Odd Nansen’s birth, in 1901. Sometimes I ask myself why I have become so enamored of a person I never met; why do I spend so much time devoted to a diary he wrote, before I was even born, and which I still have difficultly fully appreciating—the description is …
Eighty years ago today, Odd Nansen arrived at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, approximately twenty-five miles north of Berlin. After a practical joke went awry, and became a contest of wills between Nansen and head of the protective custody camp called Grini, located outside of Oslo, Norway, Nansen was informed by the Schutzhaftlagerführer: …
Not long ago I was introduced to an interesting blog called “Dairies of Note.” Having spent much time involved in a diary of note, I was intrigued by the blog writer’s approach: quote, on each calendar day, a different diary entry written by someone on that very day sometime in the past. It is quite …
“Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.” Macbeth, Act V, Scene viii I first met Tom Buergenthal—or rather—he first met me, in January 2011. As my readers know, a year earlier I had purchased Tom’s newly published memoir, A Lucky Child, on an impulse. …
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 …
On this date 81 years-ago Odd Nansen was ordered, by the local sheriff and two Germans, to accompany them to Oslo “for questioning.” He would soon learn the truth—the authorities had no interest in questioning him, and no intention of releasing him from their grasp. His crime? None. Nansen was never accused or convicted of …
“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.
