MUMBAI, India [NYDN] — The little boy's voice echoed down the staircase from the second floor, steady and insistent.
“Sanda! Sanda! Sanda!” cried Moshe Holtzberg, just three days short of his second birthday. The beloved boy's parents - former Brooklynites Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah - were unconscious nearby.
Inside Hero Nanny’s Dash to Save Young Boy During Mumbai Massacre
MUMBAI, India [NYDN] — The little boy’s voice echoed down the staircase from the second floor, steady and insistent.
“Sanda! Sanda! Sanda!” cried Moshe Holtzberg, just three days short of his second birthday. The beloved boy’s parents – former Brooklynites Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah – were unconscious nearby.
Moshe, his pants spattered with blood, stood alongside his mother’s body, calling again for his nanny, Sandra Samuel, who was crouched in terror one floor below in the service kitchen.
“He will never stop until I come,” she remembered thinking.
Samuel was paralyzed by fear, trapped for hours after Islamic terrorists had burst into the Chabbad-Lubavitch Center the night before to the sounds of explosions and gunfire.
Zaki, the live-in handyman, warned her to stay put.
But the courageous nanny told the Daily News in her first newspaper interview that the boy’s familiar, pleading voice was too compelling to ignore – no matter the risk.
“At around 11 in the morning, I suddenly heard the baby calling me,” Samuel said. “He has a way of calling me, ‘Sanda, Sanda, Sanda.’ I told Zaki I was going up, and he said, ‘No! it’s a trap! They will kill you.’ But I said to him, ‘I don’t care, I am going to get the baby.’
”Baby was standing next to his Ima [mother], who was laying on her side. His Aba, Rabbi, was laying next to her, on his stomach. Their eyes were closed, unconscious.
“Next to them, I saw the legs of a man out from under the table, with blood. Baby’s pants also had a big circle of blood.
”The terrorists must have been upstairs. I grabbed the baby and I ran, then I got Zaki, and we ran out.“
There was no sign of the men who terrorized Mumbai for 60 paralyzing hours last week. She wrapped the child in her arms. The boy, once in her grasp, fell blessedly silent.
And then she ran.
Samuel stopped to grab the boy’s doll from a pile of rubble, then fled with Zaki down an alley to freedom – the only three to escape death inside the five-story building.
Samuel relived the entire evening and its aftermath, a quiet night that began with a festive shared meal before turning into a massacre that left six dead.
The nanny was cleaning up after the Nov. 26 dinner party inside the community center, where she had lived and worked for the Holtzbergs since 2003.
The boy with the golden curls was asleep in the upstairs family room. Holtzberg and his pregnant wife had just bade good night to their 15 guests.
Bonded since birth
Samuel had cared for Moshe since his birth and watched in admiration as the Holtzbergs converted the narrow cement building into a destination for diplomats, tourists and local Jews.
A large crowd for dinner with the rabbi was part of the Mumbai routine for Samuel.
Only one thing was different: On most Wednesdays, the nanny left work early to spend the afternoon and evening with her sons.
”I always, always go visit my sons on Wednesday afternoon, and come back the next day,“ she said. On this day, for no good reason, she opted to stay and help out with the guests.
”It was only 15 minutes after most of them had left,“ she recalled. Samuel was in the kitchen on the first floor with Zaki, putting chickens in the refrigerator for the Sabbath.
”Suddenly, we heard explosions, gunshots right next to us,“ she said. A terrorist appeared, his ”very big gun“ belching fire at her from close range.
”The noise almost broke my ears,“ she said. ”I slammed the door of the service kitchen in his face, and Zaki and I got down low between the wall and the fridge. He never came back for us.
“Maybe he thought we had run away through a back door.”
The two, afraid for their lives, instead stayed hidden as the night gave way to the dawn and chaos reigned throughout the coastal city.
While cowering in the kitchen, Samuel said she drew strength by thinking about her employers – even as she wondered about their fate.
“Rabbi and Rivki are very strong, and they always pray,” she said.
The silence in the kitchen was broken only by occasional gunfire, until Moshe’s voice rang out Thursday around 11 a.m. To reach the boy, Samuel had to scale a staircase the terrorists had reduced to rubble.
Once she had escaped with the child, Samuel was taken for questioning by police, who ignored her pleas to help the unconscious couple left inside.
“So stupid they are,” she said. “So many questions, but somebody needs to go get them out.”
Days later, she blamed herself for rescuing only the boy and not the entire family, ignoring her death-defying bravery.
“I should have gone in again,” she said. “I should have tried to help them. I should have checked to see what’s wrong.
”What kind of a person am I to have just run out?“
She’s unsure why she stayed at work on this Wednesday of all days: ”I did not have a special feeling. I just didn’t go,“ she said.
When the news finally came last week of the carnage inside the building, the nanny was stunned.
”Both?” she asked in disbelief after TV reports that Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg were dead inside the home they had all shared.
On Samuel’s lap as she digested the news was Moshe. The newly orphaned boy was sitting quietly again with his nanny.
Imale
Sandra I don’t have the words to describe all my feelings. You have touched so many. There’s so much I wish I could do for you. G-d should bless you with many many good revealed blessings! You are a hero!
john
teach shameful CNN abt mothering hey! ure the only site that requires a code annoying
abe
She deserves every accolade.
I don’t believe there is a fiction writer in the world that could have written anything as gruesome and horrible as took place in Mumbie and the Chabad house.
Now watch for the first depraved mind to try and recreate this horror in a movie that will once again cause the viewers to cringe and cause other animals to try to copy so they will have their act known worldwide.
Daneil
G-d bless you, Sandra.
But it irks me that you cooperated with CNN, which has been so cruel in its coverage of Israel and Jewish issues. Better that we speak with the Wall Street Journal.
touched
What a special woman…so entirely selfless and loving. A true messenger from G-d.
Inspired
Just beautiful! May Hashem reward her for everything she’s done, does and will continue to do.
so happ that little moshe is hapy once a
very beatiful!
CH
Just like Paroh’s Daughter saved Moshe Rabainu.
avrohom yitzchiok
HEART WARMI9NG TO SEE MOISHELE SMILE.. may it continue fot many years!
rochel
This righteous Gentile woman was the perfect reflection of the tzadekus that she worked for and learned from these past 3 years. How Rivky would have reacted if the tables were turned is just how this extraordinary humble woman acted. …and despite what she did she still feels she should have done more…
We all can learn so much from these two righteous women….
The Holtzbergs memory will be for eternity as will this woman’s brave acts…
rochel
This righteous Gentile woman was the perfect reflection of the tzadekus that she worked for and learned from these past 3 years. How Rivky would have reacted if the tables were turned is just how this extraordinary humble woman acted. …and despite what she did she still feels she should have done more…
We all can learn so much from these two righteous women….
The Holtzbergs memory will be for eternity as will this woman’s brave acts…
rochel
This righteous Gentile woman was the perfect reflection of the tzadekus that she worked for and learned from these past 3 years. How Rivky would have reacted if the tables were turned is just how this extraordinary humble woman acted. …and despite what she did she still feels she should have done more…
We all can learn so much from these two righteous women….
The Holtzbergs memory will be for eternity as will this woman’s brave acts…
rochel
This righteous Gentile woman was the perfect reflection of the tzadekus that she worked for and learned from these past 3 years. How Rivky would have reacted if the tables were turned is just how this extraordinary humble woman acted. …and despite what she did she still feels she should have done more…
We all can learn so much from these two righteous women….
The Holtzbergs memory will be for eternity as will this woman’s brave acts…
Yosef
Interesting that nobody has mentioned this yet: is this woman being helped with therapy and counseling?
annonomys
gd bless that women and there must have been a good reason for her being employed there ,and now we know why her real duty was to save moshe .gd does work in mysterious ways always for the right reasons !! gd bless you sandra.
Wolf
She is mamash an angel from Heaven.
shulamit
G-d bless Sandra! Little Moshe is so blessed to have her!!
I don’t think it’s fair to say she is a reflection of the tzadeikes that she worked for. I think her goodness came from within her own self. Let’s give her credit where it’s due.
Token of Appreciation
Can us as “family” to Moishe’le do something for her? that she saved one of us?
Roses
To Yosef, I certainly hope that she is being offered top-notcch psychological counseling. Moishy, sheyichye, needs play therapy — not only is he a 2 year old yasom, which is traumatic enough, I shudder at what his eyes must have beheld during the massacre.
Based on what’s been done so far, I am also sure that both Moishy and his nanny and receiving proper care.
At the same time, I do not think that we, even through the greatest compassion, have to know about every private detail. Everyone involved in this churban needs time out of the public eye.
shliach
mistake by cnn he is staying by his granparents and not by an orphanage bay god blss them all
francine
may gd heal everyones pain,may gd show his light to everyone,and may gd protect all his children,and may he bring moshiah apeedly.gd bless someone who thaught about this little boy insted of her life .she will never be forgotten .
wow
wow i never heard of such woman who puts her life in danger to save little moishe go-d bless you sandra!!