The whistle

Every year teachers and kindergarten teachers debate the issue of how to present the difficult story of the Holocaust to young children. The writers of this book have heard the story told by Dr. Nurit Ronen, who brings her mother’s live testimony as a Holocaust survivor. Dr. Ein Gedi and Kaganowski have decided to adapt this story, in order to turn it into an educational and didactic tool for teaching and preserving the memory of the Holocaust in kindergartens and elementary schools.
It is a true story, which uses the characters’ real names. The story depicts tight family connections between a brother and a sister during the war – love, separation and hope. At the end of the war Nurit’s mother heard that there were survivors at a close-by transit camp. Full of hope, she set out to look for her brother and joined a group of soldiers of the Allied forces in their jeep.
She arrived at a big and crowded hospital in the transit camp. She did not know how she could find her brother. Suddenly she remembered the family “tune”. Family members used to whistle it to one another upon arriving home or in times of distress. She walked around the main building whistling. After a short while she heard the same tune whistled from inside that building. She ran in the direction of the whistle and found her brother. It was a moving reunion; later they both made Aliaya to Erez Israel.
About the writers:
Dr. Anat Ein Gedi was born in Nehariya in 1971. She has been a kindergarten teacher for 16 years. She holds both M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Education and Plastic Arts for preschoolers. She is a lecturer in Sha’anan College and conducts workshops in continuing education programs.
Kira Kaganovich was born in the Ukraine and made Aliya in 1990. She has been a kindergarten teacher for the last 17 years and is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Kira is a coauthor of this book, since she wants to perpetuate the memory of her family members who didn’t survive the Holocaust and to cherish the ones who did, those who have built new lives and have enabled her to have a happy life.