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Near death experiences - Ornella Corazza

I was born a Jew in Germany, probably some time in late 1937 but as I have no papers and all the people connected with me are dead, I have no way of proving it. My first experience happened when I was 3 or 4 years old. I remember being taken out of my house by my father and a soldier who sent us to the other side of the road. I looked back and saw my mother being held by a group of neighbours. She was yelling at the soldier who told her to be silent. I was afraid and started crying. My mother continued to scream at the soldier so he stepped up to her and hit her in the head with his rifle. As she was lying on the ground an SS officer went over to her, stood with one foot on her body and shot her in the head with his pistol.

I screamed. He turned, raised the pistol and pointed it at me. I turned to run and was shot in the back. I experienced a shock, and pain that nearly took the top of my head off. Then I heard music. I can't describe it in earthly terms. I was in darkness. Then the darkness changed into a passage and then it was light and peaceful, like being in a big smile.

I heard voices and they were like a caress, but I didn't understand what was being said. In the light I could feel someone else's tears and I saw 'beings'. I then saw one who I remembered seeing at another time. I tried to reach out to him. Tears were in his eyes and his thoughts came clearly to me, 'You cannot touch us.'

At that moment the pain started again and then I must have slipped into a state of sleep or unconsciousness.

Upon regaining consciousness some time later, Hannah realized she had been taken to the nuns, who were looking after her. She was afraid because she'd heard terrible things about nuns and Christians. Doctors examined her back, then strapped her to a table and one of them gave her a drink that made her feel dizzy and sick. He then began to operate on her back. She said:

I faded out. It was blue-black then a roaring black, then once again there was peace. This time there was no music, no lullaby. I saw two people I knew but I don't remember their relationship, and I also saw three 'beings'. The third 'being' then sent me a message of hope, love and caring. He sent me messages of a future without pain.

As Sutherland reported, Hannah assumed she then returned to her body, because later, while strapped in splints, she remembers the building being on fire. She said, 'I was rescued by being thrown out the window.' Before the end of the war Hannah was taken to New Zealand as an orphan. Her next NDE occurred when she was about 15 in a bicycle accident when she hit a truck. This time she had no awareness of any darkness or pain but, while out-of-body, observed the people who were gathered around her. She said,

'I floated quite happily, watching myself and them for a very long time.'

Five years later, aged 20, while afflicted with pneumonia and heavily pregnant, she was rushed to hospital in labour. Her child was born

'in a great hurry.  I could see her, myself, and the doctors and nurses and then I travelled through the tunnel until I was presented with the choice of rest or going back.'

The next thing she knew, she was in intensive care; and three days later her daughter died.

According to Sutherland: In view of her many tragic life experiences it might seem surprising that Hannah did not choose 'rest' during her NDE. However, as a child she had seen her 'light being' guardian again - her 'friend of the tears' – and his message of hope had left her feeling she was not on her own, and that there was a future without pain.