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December 4, 2008
Posted: 2003 GMT
Looking out of the French windows to the back garden, it is a heart-warming sight. A two-year-old boy is squealing with delight as he bats a balloon around with his nanny. Then he furrows his brow in intense concentration as he draws her a picture.
Sandra Samuel and Moshe Holtzberg were the only ones to survive a siege on Mumbai's Chabad House last week.
It is hard to believe this little boy lost his mother and father in the attack on Mumbai’s Chabad House Jewish Center last week — his parents, the center’s directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were among six people who perished — but the hope is that he is too young to remember too much. We keep out of sight. Strangers, understandably, upset him. Only our Israeli cameraman Avi is allowed up close. He has a baby almost the same age as Moshe, and after handing him back his errant balloon he becomes accepted in the circle of trust. His nanny Sandra Samuel is only told of our interview 10 minutes before we arrive. Those protecting her didn’t want her worrying about it on top of the incredibly traumatic experience she has already been through. Watch more on Moshe’s escape As she walks into the room, I am struck by how petite and how poised she is. Within minutes you feel this woman’s inner strength and her utter devotion to the two-year-old whose life she saved. During the height of the attacks that killed 179 people across Mumbai, Samuel spent 12 hours locked in a storeroom after being shot at by one of the gunmen. As the siege continued, she left this relative safe place, not knowing where the gunmen were, the second she heard the baby calling her name. She denies she is brave, saying simply this baby is very precious to her and no one thinks of dying with a small precious baby in your arms. She even feels guilt that she didn’t also save the rabbi and his wife, both shot by the gunmen. When I ask her how she is coping, she laughs at the thought of worrying about herself or even talking about herself saying simply: “Baby’s there, Sandra’s there, that’s it.” One thing that clearly disturbs her is that she knows Moshe was asleep on the fifth floor of the Jewish Center when the gunmen entered. She found him on the second floor and with a perfect handprint mark on his back. The thought of a gunman carrying him down the stairs and hitting him is too much for her. We keep the interview fairly short — Moshe becomes inconsolable if he’s parted from Sandra for too long. She is the one constant in his young life at the moment that he can cling to, and he is not letting go. The second he is back in her arms, he smiles. Moshe is surrounded by a lot of people who adore him, he will never want for help, financial or emotional. But the worry is he will never know his parents. Those close to him are torn between hoping he remembers nothing of the attack but hoping he will remember something of his parents who adored him. For the first few days, he constantly cried for his mother and was inconsolable. He cries less now he has the distraction of a garden filled with toys, but Sandra knows the difficult and heart-breaking questions are still to come. A family is destroyed; a little boy orphaned. The utter waste is heart-breaking. Posted by: CNN Correspondent, Paula Hancocks
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