On Yom Hashoah the message “Whoever saves a life saves an entire world” (Talmud, Sanhedrin) is even more poignant.

In 1942, the Germans rounded up all the Jews in a Polish village, including this little boy and his family, and put them on a train. The boy’s mother understood that they were on a train to Auschwitz and in an effort to save his life, she threw him off the train.

The young eight year old boy survived the fall and made his way to a nearby village where a young Christian woman saw him and took him in and hid him for 18 months, until the end of the war in her home. After the war, the boy learned that his entire family was gone.

That little boy was the father of our Director General, Professor Ofer Merin and seventy-six years later, he returned to the house where his father had been hidden. The second photograph, is Prof. Merin with the daughter of the woman who saved his father’s life.

That woman saved Prof. Merin and today he and the Shaare Zedek team that he leads, save lives every day.

Today we remember and we will never forget. Today we are also thankful for all those who were saved and who created “entire worlds.”

#NeverForget