Based on detailed interviews with twenty adult burn survivors, Journeys Through Hell examines self, identity and social reality. Stouffer integrates theoretical perspectives with the survivors' own words to show how trauma affects the survivor's worldview, how support and acceptance are achieved, and how such an achievement is embedded within a social process involving not only the survivor but also doctors, nurses, therapists, friends and family members.

Hannah was but a young Jewish girl at the tender age of seventeen, when she and her younger sister got caught up in the horrors of Nazi Europe. She watched as her poor but lovely village was raped and destroyed by the invading Nazi war machine. In 1943 Hannah fled her village and her family never to see either again. She took her younger sister and escaped to hungry vowing to her mother that she would always protect and never leave her sister. After hiding underground I Budapest for several months, the Gestapo caught up with Hannah and her sister and they were sent to the death camps. Throughout Auschwitz, throughout a death march to Bergen-Belsen, among all the horrors and death of the gas chambers and the crematorium, this incredible young girl never broke the promise she gave to her mother. Hannah did much more than save her younger sisters life however. Through her own courage and cunning, Hannah managed, at the risk of certain death, to save hundreds of lives in Bergen-Belsen. When the British liberated Hannah on April fifteenth, nineteen forty-five, Hannah was near death from typhoid and pneumonia. She weighed a mere fifty-seven pounds. As Hannah lay dying with her sister, a British soldier gave her a chocolate bar. Hannah was too weak to raise her head to eat it, but she could still wave her hand and smile. Thanks. Hannah said. My God, what took you so long?

John Bunyan portrays one man’s lifelong journey to hell and what we can do to avoid the same fate. In this fascinating allegory, the wickedness, depravity, and carnality in the life and death of Mr. Badman are contrasted with biblical standards of living and the path that leads to heaven. On the Day of Judgment, will you inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you? You can live a successful life now and be ready to enter the eternal City of God. Millions have read The Pilgrim’s Progress and received inspiration for their Christian walk. Now, you can follow another man, Mr. Badman, on his life journey, which leads him ultimately to hell. In this allegory, the wickedness, depravity, and carnality in the life and death of Mr. Badman are contrasted with biblical standards of living and the path that leads to heaven. The wisdom of Mr. Wiseman will strike you as he explains a godly life in all situations, including home, business, and relationships.

Captured by the Japanese on Corregidor in 1942, the author, a Navy medic, found himself aiding many of his fellow captives who had been wounded in the defense of the island. This is his story of imprisonment by the Japanese at camps in the Philippines, Japan and Manchuria. He remembers caring for the sick and wounded at Bilibid and the brutal Cabanatuan prison camps where starvation, malnutrition, diseases and degradation were a way of life are included. Also detailed are his journey aboard the Japanese hellship Oryoku Maru that left Manila with 1,619 prisoners but arrived in Japan with fewer than 400 survivors and his liberation from a camp in Mukden, Manchuria, by Russian troops.

A New York Times best-selling scholar's illuminating exploration of the earliest Christian narrated journeys to heaven and hell “[An] illuminating deep dive . . . An edifying origin story for contemporary Christian conceptions of the afterlife.”—Publishers Weekly From classics such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid to fifth-century Christian apocrypha, narratives that described guided tours of the afterlife played a major role in shaping ancient notions of morality and ethics. In this new account, acclaimed author Bart Ehrman contextualizes early Christian narratives of heaven and hell within the broader intellectual and cultural worlds from which they emerged. He examines how fundamental social experiences of the early Christian communities molded the conceptions of the afterlife that eventuated into the accepted doctrines of heaven, hell, and purgatory. Drawing on Greek and Roman epic poetry, early Jewish writings such as the Book of Watchers, and apocryphal Christian stories including the Acts of Thomas, the Gospel of Nicodemus, and the Apocalypse of Peter, Ehrman demonstrates that ancient tours of the afterlife promoted reflection on matters of ethics, faith, ambition, and life’s meaning, the fruit of which has been codified into Christian belief today.

A Journey to Hell, Heaven, and Back In 1978, Ivan Tuttle was living a carefree life, going from one party to the next, from one high to anotherwhen his fun, free life was interrupted by a pain in his leg. Doctors told him he had a dangerous blood clot in his legbut Ivan didnt pay much attention to that. He was 26 and felt fine; blood clots were a problem for his grandfather, not him. Until the clock ran out. Ivan Tuttle suddenly found himself dragged down to hell for a horrifying lesson in the reality of eternity. He was spared and even saw Heaven before being sent back to earth with quite a story to tell.

“Banged up for drug smuggling, Donald MacNeil found himself surrounded by torture, murder and full-scale war, in the scariest prison in the world…” MAXIM "A truly compelling true life story." KNAVE Sailing instructor Donald MacNeil was delighted when he was hired to skipper a yacht across the Mediterranean. The pay was good and the work was easy - or so he thought. Then the truth was revealed: he had to sail to South America to collect one of the biggest shipments of cocaine ever bound for the UK. And to the gangsters who hired him, refusal was not an option. There followed a harrowing journey to Venezuela, where almost £50 million of coke was waiting. But someone had tipped off the authorities. Donald and his fellow crewman were arrested, convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to six years in the notorious island prison of San Antonio. He soon discovered why Venezuela’s prisons are the most violent in the world, a nightmare gulag where hundreds are killed and thousands maimed every year in riots, vendettas and petty disputes. Thrown into a filthy, over-crowded dormitory known as Pavilion 4, and surrounded by armed gangs, crack addicts, death and disease, he faced a daily fight to survive. Ferocious guards beat prisoners indiscriminately and many cut themselves in “blood strikes” to protest against the scarce food, undrinkable water and lack of medical care. Finally a war broke out between two prison compounds, involving guns, machetes and even grenades. Through it all, and despite witnessing the brutal killing of his friend and mentor, MacNeil clung to the belief that one-day he would be home. Journey To Hell is a harrowing but compelling account of man’s extraordinary will to survive in a world gone mad.