11/27/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CuCXM33h8/?mibextid=wwXIfr
In the middle of World War II, while borders tightened and empathy thinned, a small ship carrying hundreds of Polish children drifted along the coast of India. They were exhausted, hungry, and alone.
These were children who had crossed half the world in search of safety.
Children who had escaped Soviet labor camps.
Children who had buried parents in frozen soil.
Children who had survived cold, illness, and years of fear.
When they finally reached British-controlled India, hoping for mercy, they were turned away.
At one port, then another, the message was the same:
“Entry denied.”
“Not our responsibility.”
“Send them back.”
They had lost everything. And yet the world seemed prepared to abandon them a second time.
Then one Indian ruler refused to accept it.
Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja, the king of Nawanagar in present-day Gujarat, heard what was happening and made a decision that carried no political advantage and asked for no permission.
He said only:
“Bring them to me.”
And to the British who governed his land, he delivered a clear message:
“If you will not help them, I will.”
The ship docked in his territory not because it was approved, but because one man’s compassion outweighed an empire’s indifference.
When the children stepped ashore—frail, frightened, unsure of what awaited them—the Maharaja met them with a simple promise:
“You are no longer orphans. You are now Nawanagaris. And I am your father.”
He kept that promise.
He did not set up a temporary camp.
He built a home.
At Balachadi, near his seaside palace, he created a refuge from 1942 to 1946 that allowed the children to live as though they had carried a piece of Poland with them. He ensured they had:
• Polish teachers
• Polish caretakers
• Polish food
• Polish traditions
• Polish prayers
He told them, “Your identity stays with you.”
While Europe was engulfed in war, he protected a community—and a culture—on Indian soil.
Those who lived in Balachadi remembered him not as a distant monarch but as someone who restored their childhood. They called him “Bapu,” their father. Many later became doctors, professors, engineers, diplomats—adults shaped by the kindness that once saved them.
Poland never allowed his actions to fade from memory.
In later years, the country honored him with:
• a square in Warsaw named “Good Maharaja Square,”
• a school bearing his name,
• and the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Polish Republic.
Poland’s parliament described him as “a man who saw our children not as foreigners, but as human beings.”
The Maharaja’s decision was not political or strategic. It was a rare act of unconditioned humanity—the kind that does not ask who is deserving, or what it will cost, but simply does what must be done.
And in a world where refugees are still turned away, where borders remain rigid, and compassion can feel limited, his story endures for a reason.
Because once, in 1942, when an empire refused to shelter 640 lost children, a single Indian king opened his doors and said,
“You are home.”
