Israel Set Apart: The Incredible Story Behind the Commander of Israel's Field Hospital Unit

Teresa Neumann : Jan 7, 2014
Lea Speyer – Breaking Israel News

The next time you read about an Israeli medical team rushing to the scene of a disaster, remember the son of a little boy thrown off a train by his mother on the way to her death (and ultimately saved by a Christian woman) and his passion to save the world one life at a time.

(Israel)—Dr. Ofer Merin, commander of the IDF Field Hospital Unit in Israel, has led his team on medical rescue missions to Haiti, Japan, and the Philippines. As head of the trauma unit at the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem and its emergency preparedness for mass casualty program, Dr. Merin is an expert on helping people survive. (Photo: Courtesy of Dr. Ofer Merin)

No wonder, as Merin himself is the product of a horrific incident of survival.

Breaking Israel News published the doctor's testimony. It goes like this:

"During the Holocaust, in a ghetto in Poland, all the Jews were rounded up and put on trains by the Nazis. One mother knew the final destination of the trains: Auschwitz. With one last look at her children, a son aged 8 and a daughter aged 6, this mother threw her children out of the train. The children ran away to a small Polish village and there a young Christian lady hid these two children for the duration of the war. The war ended and the children survived. A few years after the war, with the founding of the State of Israel, the children made their way to Israel and began their lives here. The boy eventually got married and had three children. Dr. Merin is the second son of this boy who was saved by the kindness of the young Christian woman."

Dr. Merin is quoted as saying he believes the story embodies a principle of his, a familiar saying in Judaism: "To save one person's life is to save the whole world."

That belief has set the Israel's Field Hospital Unit apart from other units around the world. While most medical teams don't leave on missions until its relatively safe, Merin's team is on the way immediately.

"Some say don't leave Israel if you don't know where you are going to go," said Merin. "No—[As in the case of the disaster in Haiti] if we would have waited, we would have lost 24 hours."

Not only that, but the report adds, "Arriving with the unit are not just medical and rescue professionals, but a host of the latest technologies, some of which are not even available in the countries they are working in. To further add to the extraordinary efforts of the Field Hospital unit, all equipment is left behind, regardless of circumstances."

So the next time you read about an Israeli medical team rushing to the scene of a disaster, remember the son of a little boy thrown off a train by his mother on the way to her death, and his passion to save the world one life at a time.