(JTA) — A new law passed in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre will require its public schools to teach about the Holocaust.
The law will go into effect next year, affecting 60,000 students at 96 public schools, The Associated Press reported, citing the city government’s website.
About 15,000 Jews live in Porto Alegre, which has been the site of several neo-Nazi attacks, including cemetery and synagogue vandalism and a plot last year to bomb two synagogues.
“The Holocaust was one of the worst massacres in mankind’s history, yet many youths and teachers know nothing about it,” the law’s author, Alderman Valter Nagelstein, told the AP. “Teaching the Holocaust in public schools will provide a better understanding of the matter and lessons to prevent it from being repeated.”
