The following is the CNN report of the interview they conducted with “Sandra Samuel”, the hero who risked her life to save 2-year-old Moshe Holtzberg from the hands of the Mumbai terrorists YM”S. Sandra is currently living in Eretz Yisroel.
The world knows her as the daring nanny who, clutching a 2-year-old boy, pushed past the havoc in a terrorized Mumbai and risked her life to keep the toddler safe.
But Sandra Samuel sees no heroism in her actions amid last week’s terror attacks on India’s financial capital that killed nearly 180 people — including baby Moshe’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka. She only wishes she could have done more.
“Even today, I am thinking I should have sent the baby and done something for the rabbi and his wife,” Samuel told CNN in an exclusive television interview in Israel, where she now lives.
Samuel and Moshe were among the few to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the Jewish center, killing the Holtzbergs and four others.
Israel’s Chabad movement has set up a fund to provide for Moshe’s care. He is being looked after by members of the community, although who will serve as his guardian has not yet been established.
The nanny says she came face to face with a gunman late Wednesday, the first night of the siege. “I saw one man was shooting at me — he shot at me.”
She slammed a door and hid in a first-floor storage room and attempted to reach the rabbi and the others on the second floor.
Overnight, Samuel frantically tried to call for help as gunfire and grenade blasts shook the Chabad House.
Samuel says she emerged early the next afternoon, when she heard Moshe calling for her. She found the child crying as he stood between his parents, who she says appeared unconscious but still alive.
Based on the marks on Moshe’s back, she believes he was struck so hard by a gunman that he fell unconscious at some point as well.
“First thing is that a baby is very important for me and this baby is something very precious to me and that’s what made me just not think anything — just pick up the baby and run,” Samuel said.
“When I hear gunshot, it’s not one or 20. It’s like a hundred gunshots,” she added. “Even I’m a mother of two children so I just pick up the baby and run. Does anyone think of dying at the moment when there’s a small, precious baby?”
Outside, chaos flooded the streets as people tried to make sense of the massacre that killed at least 179 people and wounded 300 others. Ultimately, she and Moshe reached safety at the home of an Israeli consul before arriving in Israel, where she is considered a hero.
In the aftermath of the attacks, Moshe asked for his mother continuously, Samuel says, and he is learning to play again — though he likes the nanny close by. And while she still has nightmares of the horrific siege that took hold of Mumbai, Samuel, a non-Jew and native of India, said she will stay in Israel for as long as Moshe needs her.
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
33 Responses
this is one of the saddest articles yet. i cant imagine how the poor confused baby must feel. to be sitting there crying as his parents lie motionless next to him…. what a horrible image. i cant stop thinking about these poor people.
The only nechama is that babys are very resilient they forget very quickly. its sad but also good hashem made it like that otherwise he would be scared for life
According to this she is a mother. If so, where are her children?
#3- perhaps they’re already adults?
She is a chasida umos haolam (pardon my dikduk), and something should be done to thank her.
To ftgirl, most probably her children are older and don’t live at home.
She deserves only our greatest hakaras hatov for her selflessness. I wonder how many other people would risk their lives to save another.
(I wouldn’t be surprised if she converts to Judaism in Israel from this whole experience!)
I hope a fund is established also for her-not only to reward her for her bravery and for her saving of Moshe but to help her with the psychological effects of the trauma. Did she live at the Chabad House?
Ihope this does not sound crazy but maybe we shoudl set up a fund to donate online to raise reward money for the Nanny as HAKORAS HATOV for her heroic act by coming out of her hiding place to save Moishele.
I think she must be from the 10 lost tribes. Some people say that some of these tribes are in India. How else can you explain such mercy for a Jewish child (by risking her own life).
#5 Basya bas Paroh who risked her life to save Moshe Rabenu converted to Judaism later.
#3 I read somewhere that this nanny is in the 40’s so she might have older children who are perhaps even married.
#4 I also feel that a person who risked her life saving another Jew deserves to be rewarded. I think klal Yisroel, esp. Chabad, should do something about it in public.
There should be parade for her in Israel and a Cash Prize,(similar to the Purim Story – “So shall be done to the man…”) so the world will see the honor given to those who work to help / save Jews. Now, in these perilous days, let’s encourage Goyim to work to help Yidden!
Let’s hear B’suros Tovos!
Brisker, If chas v, shalom you were in the same situation ansd u saw a lone child screaming for his life u wouldnt grab and run? Please she saw a a child not a jewish child.
why doesnt the israeli government make her an award-righteous amongst the nations?
she should be commended in all possible financial ways for her and her chikdrens nbeeds wherever they may be.
brisker,
because nobody but Jews shows compassion for children?
#7 You are 100% right. Hakoras Hatov. My grand father stil sends a check every month for the last 60 years to a family in Germany who helped save his life. 1 To make a Kiddish Hashem 2. So they get paid on this world for thier good deeds.
I agree with 6 and 7…..also doesn’t her name sound Jewish?
She must have some jewish blood in her.
How bigoted and narrow minded the above remarks! Only Jews are capable of good deeds? Only Jews show rachmanus? Very sad – this highlights a chisaron in midos
Thank you, Charvona (#17). You echo my thoughts. What a bunch of bigots we in the frum community have become. A non-Jew shows compassion or does a heroic act, so he or she must therefore have Jewish blood? “Jewish blood”??? Gottenu, the Nazis used to talk of Aryan blood being superior. Is this what we have become? I know non-Jews who every day give more tzedaka and conduct themselves with more yiras shamaim than all too many frum Yidden.
This woman is a hero to the greatest degree. Why do people have to lower themselves and try to judge and validate her authenticity and the honor she deserves as a human being? Hashem often speaks of the righteous of all nations. Does He speak that there are unrighteous in all nations except one?
#14- sending money so they get schar in olam hazeh and to make a kiddush Hashem is not hakoras hatov
There’s something called a “righteous Goy”!!! B”H there are some out there – just a nice Goy. Why do you think she must be Jewish? People aren’t usually put to test in such a situation. When it comes down to it, people realize what’s important!
#20, what number #14 spoke about is showing hakoras hatov and your editorial comment about it being “so they can get schar….etc.” is wrong, rude, and you owe him an apology.
Relax. I don’t think the speculation about Sandra’s lineage is as much about a Jewish monopoly on compassion as it is surprise at the all-too-rare display of mesirus nefesh from the non-Jewish world toward our own.
bengershon (#23): Mesirus nefesh on the part of the non-Jewish world toward Jews is not as rare as you think, and if we didn’t all have this anti-Goy mindset we would realize that non-Jews display mesiros nefesh and chesed toward Jews on a wide array of levels every day and in every country where Jews reside, from non-Jewish police and firefighters and doctors and nurses who save Jewish lives to non-Jewish neighbors who run errands for us when we’re sick or non-Jewish coworkers and acqaintances who go the extra mile with all sorts of everyday good deeds toward us to the literally millions of evangelical Christians who tirelessy lobby Congres and the White House on behalf of Israel and who donate tens of millions of dollars every year to help poor Jews in Israel, etc. (and no, I’m not referring to “missionary” activities).
It’s really time we took our heads out of the sand. Our attitude toward non-Jews (as reflected by so many comments here) probably does more to create anti-Semitism than anything else.
#22 -I think you misssed my point—If you read 14 he says that they sent the money for 2 reasons. One of them is so the Goyim should get their reward in THIS world. I was not being rude, I was questioning whether that ius Hakoras HaTov or not. I think YOU owe ME an apology.
What??
I think there is a misunderstanding… I am sure that #14 is saying that the reward in THIS world is in ADDITION to the schar Hashem will provide in Olam Habah.
How appalling for people to seriously say that she must ahve some Jewish background, based on her actions. I suppose that Raoul Wallenberg and the Japanese attache (along with countless others )that helped save Jews during the Holocaust must have had “Jewish Blood”! How arrogant many frum people have become!
please–Hashem yirachem–please stop the negative commenting…..Hashem knows we are a nation of emes and we are always trying to seek the truth, but we don’t need to do it through ona’as devarim.
Please channel these desires towards ahavas yisroel and kiddush Hashem…Do it in the zechus of the kedoshim of mumbai…
by controlling oneself in this area, great bracha can be brought into the world. and we all know how desperately we need that.
Yes, the gemara says clearly that true chesed and mesirus nefesh are Jewish traits, and not to be found among the umos. So when we see someone from the umos who appears to display these traits it should lead to such speculation. Where else would she get it.
When the Giv’onim showed cruelty, the Tanach immediately tells us that this was because they were “lo mibnei yisroel”, because someone who is mizera yisroel could not behave like that. When a yid acts like a Giv’oni we question his yichus; so when a “Giv’oni” acts like a yid we should also question his yichus, and wonder whether he comes from better stock.
You don’t like it? You call it bigoted? Lo oleinu selunoseichem. Get over your Western egalitarian nonsense and accept that the Torah is “bigoted”. Yiddishkeit is “bigoted”. There is a clear difference bein yisroel lo’amim, and if you don’t like it then accept it bekabolas ol. Or go shmad yourself and leave us alone, because this is yiddishkeit.
#25, yes, absolutely, they should get their schar in this world. When Doniyel advised Nevuchadnetzar to give tzedoko in order to atone for his sins, he was punished for this.
There is a well known concept that reshaim get their schar in this world so that they will not get rewarded in the next world. I may have misunderstood 14, but that is how i understood the post.
Wallenberg? Sure sounds Jewish :>)
Milhouse, I understand where you are coming from, it is absolutely true that these points are metioned in chazal and is elaborated on by many of the kadmonim, notably the ponim yofos with regard to the essence of a yid being good etc. However in a forum like this which is accessible to anyone one must be extremely careful how the “truth” is portrayed.
anyway most of what is being discussed here is not at all the true interpretation of the mamorei chazal- chazal never suggested such a ludicrous thing that non jews are any less capable of compassion than jews! that is not the meaning at all.
for someone who has experienced life take it from me that in many ways non jewish organisations and individual people will go to far greater lengths to help unfortunates who are not of their ilk as opposed to what really happens in our world.
this nanny is a good human being, she may or may not have jewish blood, who cares!! let us learn from her and the kedoshim who she was associated with who were selfless people in every respect of the word.