Tag Archives: history

Lockdown Diaries

I’ve seen various stories about people documenting their time under coronavirus lockdowns, using sketchbooks or journals. Here’s one example, a visual diary kept by a Scottish architect: Prof Alan Dunlop has filled six A4-size sketchbooks since the start of restrictions to limit the spread of the coronavirus. He has sketched scenes inside and outside the … Continue reading Lockdown Diaries

Dutch Diaries of World War II

Such an amazing story from the NY Times, with lots of images of the diaries! Anne Frank listened in an Amsterdam attic on March 28, 1944, as the voice of the Dutch minister of education came crackling over the radio from London. “Preserve your diaries and letters,” he said. Frank was not the only one listening. … Continue reading Dutch Diaries of World War II

Notebook Page from a Japanese Internment Camp

I spotted this in the New York Times Magazine of November 17, 2019. It is one of the saddest, most infuriating, most shameful notebook pages I’ve featured, as it was drawn by a young man who was incarcerated in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, and then ended up serving in the military … Continue reading Notebook Page from a Japanese Internment Camp

Zuzana Justman’s Terezín Diary

A very powerful article from the September 16, 2019 New Yorker magazine: My Terezin Diary, by Zuzana Justman. It’s a miracle that the diary and its author both survived the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps. I kept the diary from December 8, 1943, until March 4, 1944—the first winter of the two years I … Continue reading Zuzana Justman’s Terezín Diary

Post-War Japanese Notebooks Recording Hirohito’s Regrets

Japanese public broadcaster NHK has obtained documents showing that former Emperor Hirohito repeatedly felt sorry about World War II and tried, unsuccessfully, to express his feelings by using the word “remorse” in a 1952 speech. The records of conversations with Hirohito spanning several years were kept by Michiji Tajima, a top Imperial Household Agency official … Continue reading Post-War Japanese Notebooks Recording Hirohito’s Regrets

How to Add Replica NY Times Front Pages to a Pocket Size Notebook

On my recent post about adding NY Times front pages to my Nolty diary, a commenter asked how she might be able to do this herself. Mine were clipped from a special section in the print edition of the paper, and those miniature front page images didn’t seem to appear in the online edition. But … Continue reading How to Add Replica NY Times Front Pages to a Pocket Size Notebook

Notebook Entries from French and Vietnamese Soldiers

Some very intriguing notebook pages were sent to me by a reader named Khang, with this background information: A friend of mine recently sent me several notebooks entries written by Vietnamese and French soldiers aboard the Kilinski, a Polish cargoship. Following the end of fighting in 1954, the ship made trips between North and South … Continue reading Notebook Entries from French and Vietnamese Soldiers

Pearl Harbor Notebook

Here’s an interesting story where a notebook makes a cameo. Sgt. Richard G. “Dick” Schimmel was at Fort Shafter, near Pearl Harbor, when the attack happened. He worked as a switchboard operator, alternating shifts with Private Joseph McDonald. McDonald was on duty when a warning of the attack was radioed in– he wrote down a … Continue reading Pearl Harbor Notebook

Morgan Library Exhibit: “The Diary”

Here’s an exhibit I plan on checking out in the near future: “The Diary: Three Centuries of Private Lives,” at the Morgan Library in New York. The exhibit includes these lovely items: A diary jointly kept by Nathaniel Hawthorne and his wife, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne: John Ruskin’s chess diary: You can see more images in … Continue reading Morgan Library Exhibit: “The Diary”