When Mary Berg, survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in April 2013 (exact date unknown), it appeared that her desire for lasting anonymity had succeeded. Her former editor, S.L. Shneiderman, had already died years before, in 1996. Susan Pentlin, who—against Mary’s wishes—prepared a reissue of Berg’s diary in 2006 (under the new title Mary Berg’s …
As we bid adieu to an old year, and welcome in a new year, it is always worth doing a bit of stock-taking. Happily, 2019 was the best year yet for sales of From Day to Day. Rather than trailing off, sales are still trending upward three- and one-half years since Odd Nansen’s diary was …
I am pleased to announce that the third distribution of royalty checks has just been made. As I explained in earlier posts (here and here), I determined at the outset of my journey with From Day to Day that any royalties derived from the sale of Nansen’s diary would go to a charity or charities …
“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.
