“It is a moving record of a man who, though he seems to be unconscious of it, is one of the noble and heroic spirits of our . . . times.” So ends William L. Shirer’s review of From Day to Day, first published on this day 72 years ago. Shirer was already a best-selling …
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or, more formally, the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. The date, set by UN Resolution, corresponds to the day that Auschwitz, the largest and deadliest concentration the Nazis ever built, was finally liberated. Approximately 1.1million prisoners, of which 1 million were Jews, …
As dates go, the first two days of August 1944 seem to me unusually fraught. Many things changed irrevocably—most for the worse, only a few for the better. ANNE On Tuesday, August 1, 1944, Anne Frank wrote in her diary to her imaginary friend Kitty. To Kitty, and only to Kitty, could Anne confide all …
Odd Nansen died on June 27, 1973, age 71. Each year on his anniversary I try to highlight some aspect of his character (here, here, here, and here). Although I never met the man, by studying his diary, and through numerous conversations with his daughter and my dear friend Marit Greve, I feel I know …
Seventy-five years ago today, Polish and Russian armed forces liberated Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, and with it, Thomas Buergenthal. Tom was nineteen days shy of his 11th birthday. He had been a captive, in one form or another, of the Nazis since early 1940, when he and his family were herded into the Kielce Ghetto in …
“Apart from the already described reactions, the newly arrived prisoner experienced the tortures of other most painful emotions, all of which he tried to deaden. First of all, there was his boundless longing for his home and his family.” —Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning Odd Nansen would certainly agree with Frankl’s observation. In the …
I’ve just returned from a magical trip to Oslo, Norway to help celebrate the 90th birthday of Marit Greve, Odd Nansen’s eldest child. The outbound voyage went without a hitch. My airplane seat had a nifty video screen which showed my position in flight at all times. I checked the flight stats while passing over …
Today is Fridtjof Nansen’s 157th birthday. I recently revisited the incredible account of his quest for the North Pole, Farthest North, in anticipation of a lecture I gave on the same subject. The last time I had read it was back in 2010, soon after I first discovered Odd Nansen’s diary and decided to get …
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 …
“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.
