Darfur teen to visit Auschwitz...

He found refuge in Israel...

Muhammad, who escaped Sudan genocide and found shelter in Israel, to travel to Nazi concentration camp with his classmates. 'Studying about your Holocaust helps me connect to my own holocaust,' he tells his friends

Kibbutz Eilot's 11th graders are scheduled to visit Auschwitz this month. They will stand at the former Nazi concentration camp and try to imagine the last moments of the Jewish victims, who saw their loved ones being murdered before their eyes. Unfortunately, one of the journey's participants will not have to use his imagination.

Muhammad and his mother escaped from Darfur, a western Sudan region which has become one of the world's most shocking locations of a humanitarian disaster. Some 700,000 people have been slaughtered there since 2003 by militia groups and rebels, and millions have escaped and turned into refugees.

Four years ago, the militia raided Muhammad's village and murdered his father and brother right in front of him. He and his mother managed to flee. After a long journey, they arrived in Israel and found shelter in the southern Kibbutz Eilot.

The Muslim teen studies in the district school in a special program for new immigrants. He is already fluent in Hebrew and has integrated well among his fellow students.

Next month, his class is scheduled to embark on an educational trip in death and concentration camps in Poland. Muhammad has expressed his desire to join the trip and has even told his friends that he views the Jewish Holocaust studies as a way to connect to his personal holocaust – after seeing his family members murdered.