Only one man said “yes.”

Year 1942.
In the middle of the Indian Ocean, an old ship drifted forward like a floating coffin. On board were 740 Polish children, orphans who had survived Soviet labor camps, where their parents died of starvation, disease, and exhaustion.

They had managed to escape to Iran.
But the tragedy did not end there.

No country wanted to receive them.

The ship was repulsed from port to port along the coast of India.
The British Empire – the world’s greatest power at the time – refused time and again.

“It’s not our responsibility.”

Food began to run out.
The medicines ran out.
And hope—the only thing that had kept those children alive until then—began to fade.

Maria, 12, squeezed her 6-year-old brother’s hand tightly.
He had promised his dying mother that she would protect him.
But how do you keep a promise when the whole world has decided that you don’t deserve to live?

Eventually, the news reached a small palace in Nawanagar, Gujarat.
The ruler was Jam Sahib Digvijay Singhji, a Maharaja under British control, with no army, no real power over the ports, and no obligation to intervene.

His advisers reported:
“There are 740 Polish children trapped in the sea. The British do not allow them to disembark.”

He asked quietly,
“How many children?”

“Seven hundred and forty.”

There was a long silence.

He then said:
“The British can control our ports.
But they can’t control my conscience.
Those children will disembark in Nawanagar.”

They warned him:
“If you face the British…”

“I will bear the consequences.”

And then a message was sent, brief but enough to save 740 lives:

“You are welcome here.”

In August 1942, the ship entered the harbor under a scorching sun.
The children descended like shadows: too weak to cry, too accustomed to pain to dare to wait.

The Maharaja was waiting for them.
Dressed in white, he knelt down to be at eye level and said, through an interpreter, words they had not heard since the death of his parents:

“They are no longer orphans.
You are my children.
I am your Bapu. His father.”

He did not build a refugee camp.
He built a home.

In Balachadi, he created a “little Poland” in the heart of India: Polish teachers, traditional food, classrooms, gardens, nursery rhymes and even a Christmas tree under the tropical sky.

He said:
“Pain always tries to erase who we are.
Their language, their culture and their memory are sacred.
Here they will live.”

During four years of war, these children did not live as refugees, but as a family.
The Maharaja remembered every name, arranged birthdays, visited them frequently, and paid for everything from his own patrimony.

The British did not protest openly.
But they did not forget.

Jam Sahib was politically isolated, limited in his influence.
He accepted the price.

Because every morning, when I heard the laughter of the children in Balachadi – a sound almost non-existent in a world of bombs – I knew that I had chosen correctly.

When the war ended, the world began to count losses: millions dead, destroyed cities, treaties to be signed.

But no one counted how many lives were saved by a single decision made in time.

On the day of the farewell in Balachadi there were no official ceremonies.
Only hugs, handwritten letters and a gentle sadness: that of leaving the only place that many had called home.

The Maharaja did not stare at the boat for long.
He turned around quickly.

Years later, those children became doctors, teachers, parents and grandparents.
In Poland, squares and schools are named after Jam Sahib Digvijay Singhji. He received the highest decorations.

But its largest monument is not made of stone.

It is built with 740 lives.

And those lives continue to tell their children and grandchildren the story of an Indian king who, when the world closed all doors, looked pain in the face and said:

“From this day on, you are my children.”