Orphans. IDF Spokesperson

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The only thing better than being a summer camp counselor is being a counselor in the "Children of the Fallen" camp. The camp caters to children from the age of three months to 10 years that have lost one of their parents in the service of the IDF.  The "Children of the Fallen" summer camp has been running for 25 years and is located in the Military Vacation Center in Givat Olga in Hadera.  The camp counselors, who care for the children, are regular service soldiers preparing for release from the IDF.  The parents of the children also get a vacation, enjoying themselves in the same center but separate from their children.  Two children who had once spent their summer in this camp are now camp counselors themselves.

Staff Sergeant Avichai Frigi (21), who serves in the weapons division in the Mitkan Adam base and expects to be released from the IDF in the coming month, lost his father from hepatitis at the young age of 11.  "My father died during his pre-army release vacation, after serving as a Major in the Ordnance Corps   He passed away just one week after being diagnosed with his illness."  His father died in the month of May, two months before the summer camp began.  Avichai did not want to join the "Children of the Fallen" camp in the year after his father's death. He decided to join the following summer.  "I was not very enthusiastic the first time I went.  My Mother had asked that I go, so I agreed to go and check it out.  On the first day I was a bit nervous because I did not know any of the other campers but after a few days I had already made friends."  He attended the camp for three consecutive years, in the fourth he opted to travel to Canada with friends for the summer.

"All the campers come from the same background but we do not talk about our loss all day," explains Avichai.  "When you are outside of the camp you feel different.  You are afraid to talk about it because you do not want people to pity you.  When people ask you what your father does for a living, you try to explain but it gets awkward.  Here, it is not like that.  Everyone knows that you lost your father or mother, and everyone speaks freely. They even making stabs at black humor, or whatever black humor 12 year- olds are capable of.  The camp makes you feel normal; you know that there are other children just like you."

Avichai had the opportunity to shorten his service by a month but decided to stay on, in order to have the opportunity of being a camp counselor in his former summer camp.  "It marks the completion of a circle for me, I came here as a camper, and now I come as a counselor," he concludes.  "I may even come back to serve as a reservist."

Loss Does Not Define the Camp:

Corporal Shani Shecter, 20 years of age, serves daily as an operational clerk in the IAF Ramat David military base.  She, too was a camper before becoming a counsellor.  She was orphaned as an infant when her father, who served in the intelligence corps, died from a severe illness.  "Growing up without a father is not strange to me because that is all I know.  At the age of 5 I went to the summer camp for the first time and loved it."  As a youngster, Shani couldn?t comprehend what was so different about the camp.  Even after learning that all the campers had suffered a similar tragedy, she would not let it interfere with her fun. "Loss does not define the camp. As a child attending the camp, you do not think that you are in camp with other orphans, it is much more interesting to know when you will be going to the pool."

"From the age of 5 I knew that I wanted to be a counselor there", she explains.  "Every year I would tell the counselors that one day I would be a counselor as well."  Although the IAF does not send soldiers to be counselors, she wouldn?t let that stop her. "To me as a child, the camp was perfect.  My fondest memories were of my time there.  Even today, when I hear the name 'Olga' my face lights up.  The camp experience was like my birthday, every year I would beg my Mother to send me to Givat Olga already."

Now that she helps run the camp, she hopes to have the same effect on her new campers, when they think of their camp experience in the years to come. "I came to be a counselor in order to give back to the camp.  I want to give back to the children everything I got out of the camp."

The campers are not yet aware that Shani and Avichai are orphans as well.  The two decided to tell the children at the conclusion of the summer.  "I don?t want the children to have to think about that, and I also don?t want the children to feel closer to me then all the other counselors," explains Avichai.  "All the counselors are equally skilled.  The subject of loss is not brought up here.  The fact that I am also an orphan was not contingent on me being accepted as a counselor.  Only those most fit for the job are accepted."