On Yom Hashoah we want to share with you the story of a young boy, only 8 years old.
The first photo was taken in Poland in 1942. Quite soon after the picture was taken, the Germans entered the village and rounded up all the Jews from the ghetto and put them on a train to Auschwitz.
The mother of this young boy understood where the train was heading. In a bid to save him, she threw him off the moving train.
Surviving the fall, the young boy navigated his way into a nearby village, where he was found by a young Christian lady who gave him refuge in her house, where he was safely hidden for 18 months.
When the war ended, the young boy came out of his shelter to realise his family was gone.
Fast-forward 76 years in the future. In the second picture you can see the house where the young boy was hidden. The lady in the picture is the daughter of the young Christian lady who hid the boy. The man is the 8 year old boy’s son Shaare Zedek Medical Centre’s Professor Ofer Merin.
This Christian lady understood that within the horror of the Holocaust, and with the millions of people that were slaughtered, that you cannot possibly save everyone.
She saved one person.
On Yom Hashoah we remember the lives lost during the Holocaust, but give thanks to the ones that were saved, to the people that created light at a time of darkness.