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Author Nansen, Odd, 1901-1973.

Title From day to day : one man's diary of survival in Nazi concentration camps / Odd Nansen ; translated by Katherine John ; edited and annotated by Timothy J. Boyce ; preface by Thomas Buergenthal
Published Nashville : Vanderbilt University Press, 2016
©20

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Description 1 online resource
Contents List of Sketches / by Odd Nansen -- Introduction / by Timothy J. Boyce -- Foreword / by Odd Nansen -- Part I: Grini -- Part II: Veidal -- Part III: Grini -- Part IV: Sachsenhausen -- Postscript / by Odd Nansen -- Photo Gallery -- Appendixes: I. Concentration Camps; II. S.S. Ranks and U.S. Army Equivalents; III. Timeline -- Glossary of Repeated German Words
Summary ""From Day to Day, a World War II concentration camp diary, one of the very few to survive, records the author's struggle, not only to survive, but to maintain his humanity, amidst the casual brutality and random terror that was the fate of a camp prisoner"--Provided by publisher"-- Provided by publisher
"In 1942 Norwegian Odd Nansen was arrested by the Nazis, and he spent the remainder of World War II in concentration camps--Grini in Oslo, Veidal above the Arctic Circle, and Sachsenhausen in Germany. For three and a half years, Nansen kept a secret diary on tissue-paper-thin pages later smuggled out by various means, including inside the prisoners' hollowed-out breadboards. Unlike writers of retrospective Holocaust memoirs, Nansen recorded the mundane and horrific details of camp life as they happened, 'from day to day.' With an unsparing eye, Nansen described the casual brutality and random terror that was the fate of a camp prisoner. His entries reveal his constantly frustrated hopes for an early end to the war, his longing for his wife and children, his horror at the especially barbaric treatment reserved for Jews, and his disgust at the anti-Semitism of some of his fellow Norwegians. Nansen often confronted his German jailors with unusual outspokenness and sometimes with a sense of humor and absurdity that was not appreciated by his captors. After the Putnam's edition received rave reviews in 1949, the book fell into obscurity. In 1956, in response to a poll about the 'most undeservedly neglected' book of the preceding quarter-century, Carl Sandburg singled out From Day to Day, calling it 'an epic narrative, ' which took 'its place among the great affirmations of the power of the human spirit to rise above terror, torture, and death.' Indeed, Nansen witnessed all the horrors of the camps, yet still saw hope for the future. He sought reconciliation with the German people, even donating the proceeds of the German edition of his book to German refugee relief work. Nansen was following in the footsteps of his father, Fridtjof, an Arctic explorer and humanitarian who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work on behalf of World War I refugees. (Fridtjof also created the 'Nansen passport' for stateless persons.) This new edition, the first in over sixty-five years, contains extensive annotations and new diary selections never before translated into English. Forty sketches of camp life and death by Nansen, an architect and talented draftsman, provide a sense of immediacy and acute observation matched by the diary entries. The preface is written by Thomas Buergenthal, who was 'Tommy, ' the ten-year-old survivor of the Auschwitz Death March, whom Nansen met at Sachsenhausen and saved using his extra food rations. Buergenthal, who later served as a judge on the International Court of Justice at The Hague, is a recipient of the 2015 Elie Wiesel Award from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum"-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed
Subject Nansen, Odd, 1901-1973 -- Diaries
SUBJECT Nansen, Odd, 1901-1973 fast
Subject Grini (Concentration camp)
Veidal Prison Camp
Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp)
SUBJECT Grini (Concentration camp) fast
Sachsenhausen (Concentration camp) fast
Veidal Prison Camp fast
Subject World War, 1939-1945 -- Prisoners and prisons, German.
World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives, Norwegian
Nazi concentration camp inmates -- Norway -- Diaries
Nazi concentration camp inmates -- Germany -- Diaries
POLITICAL SCIENCE -- Political Freedom & Security -- Human Rights.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Scandinavia.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Historical.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Western.
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Genocide & War Crimes
Nazi concentration camp inmates
Germany
Norway
Genre/Form Diaries
Personal narratives
Form Electronic book
Author John, Katherine, -1984.
Boyce, Timothy J
LC no. 2016005183
ISBN 9780826521026
0826521029
0826521002
9780826521002
9780826503824
0826503829
Other Titles Fra dag til dag. English