Two Milestones Achieved

I was pleasantly surprised recently when I learned from my publisher, Vanderbilt University Press, that they had ordered a second printing of From Day to Day: One Man’s Diary of Survival in Nazi Concentration Camps.  Vanderbilt originally expected the initial printing would take up to three years (or until May 2019) to sell out, so Odd Nansen’s diary is performing well ahead of forecast.  With over twenty-five presentations  in nine states already scheduled for 2018, sales should remain robust for some time yet.

Many thanks to everyone who has already purchased a copy of From Day to Day.  Tell your friends that the coveted (and increasingly valuable) first edition will soon be sold out!

My website has a nifty “app” which allows me to see how many visitors the site receives.  Somehow, this app can recognize the URL address of each visitor, and report how many new, unique, visits are made, and how many are from parties who have previously visited.  (In other words, I can’t have five of my best friends visit the site ten times a day, and claim I am getting “lots of traffic.”)

Well, as of last week, my website has received over 5,000 unique visitors since I launched it.  I thank you all for your interest and support, and will continue to add new content (blogs, reviews, photos, testimonials, calendar updates), to keep you all coming back, and attracting new visitors interested in learning the remarkable story of Odd Nansen.  As Nikolaus Wachsmann, author of the groundbreaking KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps, writes of the diary: “Rarely has the inhumanity of the camps been captured with such humanity.”

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.