Whistles used by Shlomo Brandt when he escaped the Vilna ghetto

Shlomo Brandt was a leader in the Beitar Zionist youth movement in the Vilna Ghetto and was among the founders of the movement's underground that was active in the Ghetto alongside the Hashomer Hatzair underground, led by Abba Kovner among others. After he escaped from the ghetto to the forests with his wife Masha, the couple joined the partisans. Shlomo led a number of attacks, among them sabotage of the train tracks, blowing up train cars, ambushes of German soldiers, and others. Shlomo and Masha's family donated assorted items including compasses and whistles that served Shlomo when he was a partisan in the Vilna forests. In his testimony Shlomo related the importance of the compasses and the whistles: "In the forests without these I couldn't move, do anything…I worked with these all the time…"