AP World History Spotlight

APWH Field Trip

Sophia Zhu

Feb. 23 2026

This February, our 10th-grade AP World History students had an extraordinary opportunity to step beyond the confines of their textbooks. They got to experience a play performed by two college students, bringing the history of immigrants to life, and a Holocaust survivor came to the school, sharing the tragic yet powerful story of his family's past.

On Wednesday, February 4th, students left the school during the beginning of second period to visit Molloy University to watch a creative and interesting play titled Layers of the Wall. The play was simple, but it was an eye-opening experience for the students to see. They sure learned a lot!

The play takes place inside a New York City apartment, where the main characters are two rats who live inside the walls of the building. Over many generations, their rat families have collected scraps of wallpaper, each telling a different story from the families that lived there. As the rats dig through these layers of wallpaper in a bag, the audience is taken back in time to experience the past and learn about the struggles of immigrants during the Industrial Revolution.

The first story focuses on an Irish immigrant family: a mother, a father, and their young daughter who is very sick. They have come to America hoping for a better life, but the father struggles to find work, as many businesses refuse to hire Irish immigrants. Eventually, he is offered a dangerous job to help build a bridge, but he has to be underwater. This was a major problem because he did not know how to swim. Despite his fear, the father takes the job, showing how hard and desperate immigrant lives were due to discrimination. Throughout the story, the family tries to stay hopeful. They tell their daughter a bedtime story about an Irish myth creature, a monster who is afraid of the color red because it represents love. Before the father leaves for work, his daughter gives him a red ribbon to carry with him. Later, when disaster strikes and water rushes in at the construction site, the ribbon helps save him by scaring away the creature.

The second story focuses on two brothers who are fishermen from Italy, but famine and financial struggles made it impossible for them to survive. With little choice, they sold everything they owned to buy tickets to America. The older brother found work at a construction site, but the younger brother was too young to work in construction. Wanting to help, the younger brother found a job selling newspapers on the street. However, he carried something with him everywhere he went, a compass which reminded him of his home in Italy and his life as a fisherman. The older brother didn't like this and told him to stop bringing it. He said it wasn't “very American.” When the younger brother first tried selling newspapers, no one would buy from him. One man even made fun of him, saying how the newspaper's content called Italians illiterate and smelly, and yet he was selling it. The turning point came during a snowstorm. An ambulance driver was struggling to find the right direction in the heavy snow. Using the compass he had been told not to carry, the younger brother guided the ambulance safely through the storm. He then earned a job as an ambulance driver.

The third story focuses on two Russian women who are close friends, and they spend long hours sewing in unsafe and exhausting conditions. The factory is overcrowded, the windows are locked, and the air is filled with smoke from the owner’s cigarettes. Workers are treated unfairly, paid very little, and injuries are common. One of the women is also dealing with issues at home; her marriage has been arranged, which is seen as a guarantee of stability and a “good life.” Her friend is happy for her, but she feels like she is too young and has a whole life ahead of her. When the news of the strike against the harsh working and living conditions spread, the factory boss threatened to fire anyone who participated. However, both women dream of something better, not just for themselves, but for all workers. The friend becomes worried and tells the main character not to join, warning her that if her future husband finds out, he might call off the marriage. But she responds that if he does not care about her safety and well-being, then he is not a good man to marry in the first place. At first, the strike seemed unsuccessful, and police officers were hired to break up the protests, injuring the women. However, the women refuse to give up, and their determination leads to change, and eventually the strike becomes successful.

After the play, the students received a campus tour and got to ask questions about the university. They learned about the college admissions process, how some schools have very specialized programs, and more. To end the field trip, they went to get food, where they could pick from Chitpole, Ikedo (a Japanese restaurant), MoGu (a Chinese restaurant), Panera, 7th Street Burger, and Luigi’s. 

On Monday, February 9th, the 10th-grade world history students welcomed a guest speaker to speak on the story of his mother during the holocaust. He explained how, when the Nazi invaded Poland, Jewish families were immediately put in danger. The men in many families were told that they were being sent away to “work.” In reality, they were being sent to be killed. The speaker’s grandfather and uncle were among those who were targeted, but they managed to escape by swimming across a river when the guards were not looking. The rest of the family went into hiding. One of them was a 6-year-old boy, which made the situation more dangerous because the Nazis were focused on killing Jewish men and boys. Eventually, the family was discovered, and the children were shot in front of the speaker’s mother. The mother and the grandmother were sent to a concentration camp, where the Nazis divided people into two lines. The grandmother was placed in the line that went to the gas chambers, but the mother acted courageously, grabbing her mother and pulling her into the labor line. This saved the grandmother’s life, but life did not improve from there. The meal only consisted of 2 thin slices of bread, and they had to perform labor in the freezing weather without shoes.

The speaker also shared the story of his father. When the Germans invaded Poland, his father escaped to Russia with his family. He later went to officer training school and became a lieutenant tank commander at just 18 years old. During the war, he helped liberate concentration camps, including Majdanek (the first concentration camp to be liberated), where he witnessed the horrors left behind by the Nazis. In May 1945, the father intercepted a message that 129 Jewish women were going to be executed at Theresienstadt the next morning. He immediately let his tanks into the camp at night, captured the guards, and freed the woman locked in the dark basement room. One of the women (the mother) told him her husband and brothers had been taken on a death march and were believed dead. After learning their last name, he discovered they actually survived and were in a Russian labor camp. He helped reunite the family, and after the war, he married the mother. They moved to America and settled in the Bronx. The father will always be remembered as a hero who helped liberate 10 concentration camps and saved thousands of lives. 

The story moved the 10th graders and made them really understand how harmful the Holocaust was. It served as a reminder of why it is so important to learn about the Holocaust and to ensure that stories like these are never forgotten. The following day, the AP World students wrote thank-you letters to the speaker for being courageous and sharing the powerful and emotional story.