Sandra Samuel Credited With Moshe Holtzberg Rescue

CNN reports that Sandra Samuel, the nanny of Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents, Gavriel and Rivka, were massacred at Mumbai's Chabad house last week, mounted a heroic rescue of the boy from the clutches of death at the hands of the terrorists:

A 2-year-old survived an attack that took the lives of his parents, thanks to a quick-thinking nanny who grabbed the boy and dashed past gunmen to safety.

It could be called one the miracles of last week's tragedy in Mumbai, India. Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg and nanny Sandra Samuel were the only ones to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the house, killing Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and four others.

Rivka Holtzberg, who arrived in Mumbai with her husband five years ago to serve the city's small Jewish community, was pregnant, her father said at her funeral Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Those at the Chabad House were among 179 people killed last week when gunmen targeted several sites across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a train station and a hospital.

As the siege at the Chabad House began, Samuel heard the commotion, locked the doors and hid in a room.

"She heard Mrs. Holtzberg -- Rivka -- screaming, 'Sandra, Sandra, help, Sandra,' " said Robert Katz, executive vice president of the Israeli organization Migdal Ohr.

She then ran upstairs to find the Holtzbergs shot dead, lying on the ground with their son crying over them.

"She literally picked him up and made a dash for the exits, almost daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby," Katz said.

The two arrived in Israel early Tuesday on a flight with the boy's maternal grandparents and the bodies of his parents.

"Moshe, you have no living mother and father. ... Today you become the child of all Israel," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a Chabad official from New York, said in a short ceremony at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.

The return of the bodies was delayed until authorities removed hand grenades from the bodies, left there by the attackers, Katz said.

The hand grenades, of course, are booby traps designed to kill the recovery teams coming to collect the dead.

Sandra Samuel has been granted a one-year visa in Israel to help care for Moshe while he he transitions to his new life.

Video Credit: "Oh, the Humanity!", Atlas Shrugs.