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Dr Yvonne Kason – Farther Shores

Here is the story of Anna, a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp

I was about twenty years old when the experience occurred. I had been captured and put into this concentration camp three years earlier. I had seen both of my parents die of starvation. They had insisted upon giving me some of their food because we were not being given enough to eat. They thought that out of the three of us, I had the best chance to survive. The winter after they died, some sort of infectious diarrhoea struck the camp. Sanitation was poor, and therefore the infection spread quickly.

Many people died from the effects of the diarrhoea.

I became so weak from the fever and the diarrhoea that I was unable to leave my cot. As I became severely dehydrated, I became too weak to eat or drink. I remember feeling my consciousness fade, my vision grew black. Suddenly I felt myself slip up, out of my body. I was floating above my unconscious body, looking down on it. I felt terrified. "No! No! I screamed inwardly. "I do not want to die too!" I felt overwhelmed with fear and panic. I wanted desperately to get back into my body and wake up.

I do not know, how long I stayed out of my body, but it was the most horrible, terrifying sensation I ever had.

The next thing I remember is waking up in my cot the next morning. My fever had come down during the night.