Thank You/A Yearend Report

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 to speak, providing referrals, writing reviews, or simply providing encouragement and/or responding to my blogs, you know who you are, and my gratitude is heartfelt.

As a short recap on my progress, here’s a brief 2024 report card:

20: Blogs written (including this one)

22: Presentations made (several more were postponed because of Hurricane Helene)

1,165: Attendees at the foregoing presentations (est.)

10,594: Miles driven

$33,674: Cumulative to-date donations of book royalties and speaking fees to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (50%) and The Norwegian Center for the Study of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities (50%).

From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps

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.