I don’t know this story but in Poland, books that were mandatory to read in primary school included:

• story about a poor kid who really wanted to play violin, dared to touch violin belonging to the landlord and was beaten to death as a punishment (Janko muzykant)
• story about a young girl that gets sick, as a “fold remedy” is put into an oven for the duration of a prayer and dies (Antek)
• story about a kid who goes to school under German occupation and studies so much he gets brain inflammation and dies (Syzyfowe prace)
• story about a dog that gets left behind when his family moves, starts running in a desperate attempt to find his owner, finds her and dies of exhaustion in her arms (what was the title??)
• story about a horse working in a coalmine that can’t ever get out because he entered when he was younger and now the ceiling is too low, the horse dies (Łysek z pokładu idy)
• story about a kid how gets pneumonia from playing outside with friends and dies (Chłopcy z placu broni)
• story about a kid who fights Germans during occupation, gets caught, is tortured and beaten up so badly that he dies shortly after his friends rescue him (Kamienie na szaniec)
• story about a teacher working in a small village, trying to teach poor children science. he gets sick and dies because there’s a blizzard and they can’t deliver medicine in time (Siłaczka)
• story about a dog that rides trains. the dog is hit by a train and dies (O psie który jeździł koleją)

I’m probably forgetting about couple more “fun” stories. So yeah, I would love to have read about spiders fucking instead.