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US Fifth graders on a trip to Germany to study the Holocaust

Johancy Torres had never heard of the Holocaust before last fall, but she will soon be tracing the footsteps of Jews at the Dachau concentration camp during a trip for fifth- and sixth-grade students at Public School 86 in the Bronx.

“I think I may cry when I see the ovens,” said Johancy, 11, adding that she planned to take a copy of “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” when she leaves later this month.

The Holocaust lessons are part of an unusual effort by P.S. 86’s teachers to expose students to a world far from their Spanish-speaking neighborhoods near the No. 4 train in Kingsbridge Heights. About 95 percent of the school’s 1,700 students are Hispanic or black. More than three-quarters of them are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.
Read entire article at NYT