Learning the hard way: The summer camp that brutally taught Russian Jews about the Holocaust

Published: 28 August 2017

Last updated: 4 March 2024

Counselors dressed as Nazi soldiers, campers as young as 10 forced to wear yellow patches and witness horrific images – these were just some of the methods the Jewish Agency used to teach the Shoah in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s

The summer camp that brutally taught Russian Jews about the Holocaust (Haaretz)
Brutal methods – which were meant to provoke a strong emotional impression from children and adolescents entitled to immigration to Israel who attended the summer camps – were common up until the mid-1990s at camps in all parts of the former Soviet Union, from Belarus to Kazakhstan and from Moscow to the Ural (Aug 26)

Image credit: Yael Bogen