The day when nanny saved 2-yr-old Moshe

MUMBAI: On November 26, 2008, two terrorists stormed Mumbai’s Jewish centre in a building called Nariman House, in Colaba.

The centre, which was home to the Mumbai chapter of the Chabad-lubavitch movement, provided religious services for visiting Jews and Mumbai’s Jewish community.

The centre’s directors, Rabbi Gavreil Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, were on the second floor of the building when the terrorists entered. They had taken hostage its residents, including the Holtzbergs and their twoyear baby Moshe.

Among others in the building was Sandra Samuel, a Mumbai resident who worked as a housekeeper for the Holtzbergs and looked after Moshe.

Hearing the gunfire, Samuel hid in a room on the first floor that housed the kitchen.

After one close encounter with one of the terrorists, Samuel and the family cook, Qazi Zakir Hussain, managed to hide from the terrorists on the first night even as she tried to reach the Holtzberg family.

She told journalists that around afternoon she heard Moshe calling out for her. She came out of the room and crawled up the debris-filled staircase to the upper floor only to find the child crying, standing between his parents who were lying on the floor. The terrorists were probably upstairs and she picked up the baby and ran downstairs along with Hussain.

On Friday, November 28, when NSG commandos ended their operation, the terrorists were killed, but five hostages, including the Holtzbergs, were dead.

Moshe now lives with his grandparents in Afula, a town in northern Israel. Samuel, who was given Israeli citizenship, accompanied him to Israel.