An Item presented in FACEBOOK, 29 December 2025 by Piyasiri Wickremasekera of Sri Lanka …. on behalf of Peradeniya University Friends [PUF]
When 740 children were dying at sea and every nation said ‘no,’ one man who had every reason to stay silent said ‘yes.’
The year was 1942. The ship drifted in the Arabian Sea like a floating coffin.
Inside were 740 Polish children. Orphans. Survivors of Soviet labor camps where their parents had frozen or starved to death. They’d escaped through Iran, only to discover something more crushing than captivity:
Nobody wanted them.
The British Empire—the most powerful force on Earth—had turned them away from every port along India’s coast. “Not our problem. Keep moving.”
The children were running out of food. Running out of medicine. Running out of time.
Twelve-year-old Maria clutched her six-year-old brother’s hand. She’d promised their dying mother she’d protect him. But how do you protect someone from the whole world turning its back?
Then word reached a small palace in Gujarat.
Maharaja Jam Saheb Digvijaysinhji was a minor prince in the grand scheme of empire. The British controlled his ports, his economy, his military. He had every reason to stay quiet and follow orders. But when his advisors told him about 740 children floating homeless while diplomats argued over paperwork, something broke open inside him.
“How many children?” he asked.
“740, Your Highness. But the British have denied them entry to all of India.”
The Maharaja’s jaw set. “The British control my harbors. They do not control my conscience. Those children will dock at Nawanagar. Prepare to receive them.”
“But Your Highness, if you defy the British—”
“Then I defy them.”
He sent word to the ship: You are welcome here. When British officials protested, this small man in a small kingdom stood in their path. “If the mighty will not save children, then I—the weak—will do what you cannot.”
The ship limped into Nawanagar’s port on a blistering summer day in August 1942.
The children descended the gangplank like ghosts—skeletal, hollow-eyed, many too sick to walk. They’d learned to expect nothing. To hope for nothing.
The Maharaja was waiting at the dock. This powerful ruler, dressed simply in white, knelt down on the wooden planks. He looked into their haunted faces and spoke through translators: “You are no longer orphans. You are my children now. I am your Bapu—your father.”
Maria felt her brother’s hand tremble in hers. After months of doors slammed in their faces, could this possibly be real?
What the Maharaja did next changed everything. He didn’t build a refugee camp. He built them a home. At Balachadi, he created something extraordinary: a little Poland in India. Polish teachers who understood their nightmares. Polish food that tasted like memory. Polish songs echoing across Indian gardens. Polish Christmas trees under tropical stars.
“Your suffering tried to erase you,” he told them. “But your culture, your language, your traditions—these are sacred. Keep them alive here.”
The children who’d been told they belonged nowhere suddenly had a place that felt like home.
Little Tomek started laughing again. Ania began speaking again. Maria watched her brother chase peacocks through the palace gardens and felt her heart remember what peace felt like.
The Maharaja visited constantly. He learned their names. Celebrated their birthdays. Held them when they cried for parents who weren’t coming back. Cheered at their school plays. Brought doctors when they fell ill.
He spent his personal fortune—his personal fortune—to give them what empires wouldn’t: dignity. Childhood. Future.
For four years, while the world burned, 740 children lived as family in an Indian prince’s heart.
They studied. They healed. They dreamed again. They became whole.
When the war ended and it was time to leave, many wept. This palace in Gujarat had become more home than anywhere they’d ever known.
Those children scattered across the globe. They became doctors, teachers, engineers, diplomats, artists, parents. They lived beautiful, full lives.
And they never forgot.
Poland built “Good Maharaja Square” in Warsaw’s heart. Schools bear his name. He received Poland’s highest honors. But the greatest monument to his courage isn’t marble or bronze.
It’s the children themselves.
Now in their eighties and nineties, they still gather. They still tell their grandchildren about the Indian king who saw past politics and power to something simpler:
740 children needed a father. So he became one.
In 1942, when every powerful nation said “not our responsibility,” one man with no obligation and every reason to stay silent looked at suffering and said:
“These are my children now.”
And he meant it.
740 lives were saved not by empires or armies, but by one person who refused to let compassion be a political calculation.
That’s not just history. That’s a reminder: When the powerful close their doors, sometimes one person with an open heart is enough to change the world.
Image created by AI
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