Yesterday, when the world was witness to the worst of humanity, it was also witness to the best.
A nanny, who saved a two-year-old toddler from Mumbai’s Nariman House, escaped from a terrorist attacking the house, who opened fire in her direction, by slamming the door in his face.
She and another employee of the Jewish centre at Nariman House had gone downstairs to the larder after dinner when they heard explosions, the nanny, identified only by her first name, Sandra, said in a newspaper interview yesterday.
“The noise was very loud,” said Sandra, who has been working for the Israeli couple who have run the Jewish centre in Mumbai for the past year.
“We understood immediately that there was an attack and that there were terrorists,” she said.
Before she and the male employee could hide in the larder, one of the gunmen saw them and opened fire in their direction.
“I don’t know how I managed to react so quickly, but I closed the door in his face. We were saved. He must have thought we escaped through some back door, but there is no such door,” Sandra said.
The two hid in the room until late the next morning, hearing gunfire and explosions. “I was very scared, but I was even more scared for the baby,” Sandra said, adding that she had put two-year-old Moishe to bed earlier in the evening.
“A lot of hours went by. We stayed like that until 11am and then, suddenly, I heard Moishe. He called me: ‘Sandra! Sandra! Sandra!’
“I decided to go upstairs despite the shooting and find him. The guy who was with me didn’t want me to go upstairs, but I was scared that if Moishe kept calling me, somebody will hear him, get to him and harm him.
“When I got upstairs all the terrorists were apparently on the roof. I found Moishe standing next to his parents. Everything was full of blood. I grabbed him, went outside the room and ran outside.”
