Memorial at Yad Vashem (Archive)
Photo: Dudi Vaknin
Israel commemorates Holocaust Wednesday evening
Shoah annual memorial events to begin Wednesday evening with state ceremony at Yad Vashem
Memorial events commemorating Remembrance Day for the Holocaust and Heroism will begin on Wednesday at 7:30 pm with a state ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will deliver speeches during the ceremony, and Holocaust survivors will light up six torches, in memory of the six millions murdered in the Shoah.
A ceremony attended by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will be held at 8:00 pm at the Massuah Amphitheater in Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak. Veteran Israelis who arrived to Israel on the ship Exodus will light up the Torch of Revival.
Army chief visits Jewish cemetery in Poland (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
A panel of Holocaust survivors and academics will be held at Yad Vashem at 10:00 pm.
On Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi will lead the March of the Living from the Auschwitz to the Birkenau Nazi death camps in Poland.
At 10:00 am Thursday a siren will be heard throughout the country and Israelis will stand in attention for two minutes of silence. Immediately following the siren, wreaths will be laid at the foot of the memorial for the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The annual ceremony 'Unto every person a name,' during which the names of Holocaust victims are read aloud, will begin at 10:30 at Yad Vashem and at the Knesset.
The main memorial will be held at 1:00 pm at Yad Vashem's Hall of Remembrance.
