This summer felt bookended for me by Camp Kinderland in a way I haven’t experienced since I was a teenager attending the camp. In early July, I attended a visiting day at Kinderland to see my teenage niece, who has been going to camp with her cousin for years, and is now a CIT (counselor in training). And in late August, that same niece arrived for our two week family vacation midway through our time on the Cape, fresh from seven weeks at camp. She was exhausted from busy days and not much sleep and mourning having had to say goodbye to her friends. I think she spent the first 24 to 48 hours post camp counting the days until she’d be back with them at Kinderland for another summer!

It was a serious trip down memory lane for me; it was decades ago but I vividly remember the days when camp was that central to my life. Camp Kinderland is a progressive/radical Jewish secular camp; when I was a camper we learned Yiddish, not Hebrew, and observed Hiroshima and Nagasaki day along with Holocaust Remembrance Day; their motto is “the summer camp with a conscience since 1923.” As a camper, I lived in Harriet Tubman and Ernestine Rose bunks, attended performances at the Paul Robeson theater and visited friends in Joe Hill; Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney; and Anne Frank bunks, to name a few.

My sister, cousins and I all attended Kinderland for at least a few years (and in some cases, many more) and it was a central part of my childhood. My dad and uncle both attended similar summer camps (although not Kinderland) for years after their parents were killed and my dad felt very strongly about making similar experiences available to his kids. Growing up in a community where family friends knew my family history but many of my teachers and friends at school didn’t, Kinderland often felt like an oasis where everyone knew my background and there was subtle, often unspoken, support and a strong feeling of community and solidarity.

Given that, it’s probably not surprising that in the early days of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, we made a lot of grants to send kids to progressive summer camps and it’s still a request that makes many Board members smile as they review applications. Today, members of our grantee community engage in an ever-broadening range of programs and activities that provide comfort and healing to kids who have dealt with the varied impacts of family targeting. No one program or type of activity works for everyone, but we do have a special place in our hearts for Kinderland and similar institutions.

In part, that’s because in addition to providing memorable summers to all four of Ethel and Julius Rosenbergs’ grandchildren (and now their great-grandchildren as well), camps like these are at their core institutions committed to social justice and to transmitting progressive values from one generation to the next. Since that commitment to “carry it forward and pass it on” is a central part of the RFC’s mission, it’s not surprising that our connection to Kinderland extends beyond my family’s personal connection to this camp. The RFC held previous Gatherings at Kinderland, sponsored their first “Art and Activism” festival and worked with members of their year-round youth engagement program on the Exonerate Ethel campaign.

Clearly, Camp Kinderland has been a trusted and much loved allied organization to both the Rosenberg/Meeropol family and the RFC over the years. We’re thrilled to celebrate their centennial anniversary this fall. We toast their 100 years of fabulous summers and wish them many, many more.