Szarvas T-shirt
1990s

This T-shirt is from the international Jewish camp in Szarvas, Hungary. Jewish children and youths from six to 18 years of age and from various countries have been meeting here every summer since the 1990s. They come from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, Russia and Ukraine, as well as from more far-flung countries like America, Israel, India and Turkey. Today, thousands of children and adults in various parts of the world own the same T-shirt. The shirts are typically marked with the signatures of the owner’s camp friends and leaders, their phone numbers or addresses, and personally decorated or painted with Stars of David or with the hearts of their summer-camp loves. Children wait to get this T-shirt, the design of which has remained absolutely unchanged for more than 20 years, for the entire two-week camp. The T-shirts are worn during the entire camp: shirts from the previous year at the beginning of camp, the new T-shirt at the end of camp. At home they run around in it in the house, sleep in it and wear it to joint meetings. One of the camp participants recollects: “Szarvas was for us, the generation of children born during the 1980s and a little earlier, a place where we could learn about Judaism, where we could be students and teachers at the same time, a place where we could say out loud who we were without worrying about derisive comments or nicknames, the place where we became adults, the place that helped determine our identities. And for those of us who did not celebrate Jewish holidays and traditions at home, Szarvas was always our one point of contact with Judaism. This shirt is for us, the young generation, one of the symbols of our identity, our Judaism.” [ZK]