A True Heroine

Sandra Samuel: A Heroine in Mumbai

The Holtzbergs were blessed with such a selfless, brave and heroic caretaker. There is no question that if it were not for the actions of Sandra Samuel, Moshe's nanny, he would not have survived the ordeal. Sandra was on the bottom floor of the Chabad House when the terrorists stormed in. She barricaded herself while she cowered from the shootings and bombings happening above her head. She did not dare leave her hiding spot until the next day, when the attacks seemed to have stopped. It was only then that she heard little Moshe crying.

She easily could have ran out, saving herself. It would have been understandable. After all, the terrorists didn't know that anyone was left inside alive. If they heard the crying, they would come back in to finish the job. It would have made most sense for her to get out of there as quickly as possible. But she didn't. She couldn't. Little Moshe was calling her name.

Sandra left her barricaded room and went upstairs for Moshe. She found him, next to his parents and soaked in their blood. She grabbed him and ran.

Miraculously, the terrorists who were still on the roof of the Chabad House didn't hear or see her or Moshe. Miraculously, this little orphan survived because of his caretaker who risked everything to save him.

Miraculous indeed. Thank you God for the strength you gave Sandra Samuel and for hiding her and Moshe from the eyes and ears of the evil men around them. Thank you Ms. Samuel for doing what the rest of us could only hope we would be brave enough to do.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ~ John 15:13

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One Of The Righteous Among The Nations

Irena Sendler, Savior Of Warsaw Ghetto Children, Has Died At Age 98

Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War Two by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in the Polish capital on Monday after a long illness, local media said.

Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, Yad Vashem, said in a statement that it mourned her death.

The web portal of Poland's leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, said Sendler, 98, died in Plocka Street hospital early on Monday. The hospital declined to comment on the report.

Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: "Irena Sendler's courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind."

Using her position as a social worker, Sendler regularly entered the ghetto, smuggling around 2,500 children out in boxes, suitcases or hidden in trolleys.

The children were then placed with Polish families outside the ghetto, created by Nazi Germany in 1940 for the city's half a million strong Jewish population, and given new identities.

But in 1943 Sendler, who led the children' section of the Zegota organization which helped Jews during the war, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo.

She only escaped execution when Zegota managed to bribe some Nazi officials, who left her unconscious but alive with broken legs and arms in the woods.

"People who stand up for others, for the weak, are very rare. The world would have been a better place if there were more of them," Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, said on national television.

Amen Mr. Edelman. Irena, who never liked to be called a hero, said of her actions: "I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little." How many of us can say we would take such a risk? May God bless us to never have to find out. More information on others of the Righteous Among the Nations.

ht: Average Gay Joe

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