Israel remembers Holocaust victims
(VIDEO) Siren blares across country, bringing life to halt for moment of silence, as Israel commemorates those murdered by Nazis, their collaborators; memorial services to be held all day, names of victims to be read out at Knesset
Throughout the day Tuesday memorial ceremonies will be held at all schools and institutions across Israel.
Video: Reuters
Immediately following the morning siren, a ceremony was held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum and flowers were placed at the memorial for the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. President Katsav, Prime Minister Olmert, the Knesset chairman, and High Court Chief Justice Barak among other public figures were expected to attend, as well as Holocaust survivors and others.
The ceremony was followed by the reading of names of Holocaust survivors in the remembrance tent, as part of the Every Person Has a Name tribute.
At the Knesset, the names of victims were read out at 11:00 a.m.
PM Olmert at Yad Vashem (Photo: Yoav Galai)
The Council of Youth Movements in Israel (CYMI) will hold a Holocaust memorial assembly, under the symbol “The image of man in the shadow of death,” at 6:00 p.m. at Yad Vashem’s “community valley,” with guest Meir Sheetrit, Minister of Education. Yad Vashem Chairman of the Board Avner Shalev, CYMI Chairman Yaniv Sagee, and some 500 adolescents will participate in the assembly.
The project’s final performance, “Music – Youth touching on Holocaust songs,” will be held at The Lab in Jerusalem, where music, song, theater and performance art shows will also be exhibited.
Services marking Holocaust Day in the educational system started already on Monday. By law, memorial services must be held at every school, as well as educational activities, and educators and teachers are instructed to dedicate classes to the issue. Likewise, school trips, or activities which are not directly connected with the day's events are not held.
On Tuesday evening a panel discussion will be held at the Diaspora Museum on the Holocaust at 6:00 p.m in the Bnei Zion Auditorium. At 7:30 p.m. the day’s memorial ceremonies will be concluded with two ceremonies at Kibbutzim Yad Mordechai and Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghettos Fighters).
Security forces readied on Monday for Holocaust Day and police have been deployed on high alert across the country. The security establishment has 76 total warnings, 20 of which are specific, that terror organizations are planning attacks. Most of the warnings are sourced in northern Samaria.
Katsav: Hatred of Israel has not passed from the world
On Monday evening, the State of Israel began its ceremonies honoring the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
The official ceremony marking the beginning of Holocaust Day was held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem in the presence of President Moshe Katsav and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
In his speech, Olmert described the "innocent Jew," armed only with his heritage, angering the Nazis because of Jewish moral values.
"The lesson of World War II is that appeasement, concessions, and weakness are a recipe for a holocaust," he said. "As a Jew, I always carry in my heart the seal of pain over the Holocaust of my brothers and sisters, but I'm proud for being the archenemy of Nazi evil."
Katsav: Hate of Israel has not yet passed
President Moshe Katsav said that hatred of Israel still exists, but Israel would not remain complacent against haters of the Jewish state.
"Hatred of Israel has not yet passed from the world and it is thriving mainly here on the soil of the Middle East, and is expressed through calls for the destruction of Israel. I call on the free world not to remain complacent in the face of such calls," Katsav said.
In ongoing projects to commemorate the Holocaust, Yad Vashem launched a national campaign to gather testimonials from survivors at their homes. The museum's Chairman, Avner Shalev, said: "recently more and more survivors find it difficult to get to Yad Vashem, and in order to make it easy for them we must now get to their homes and allow them to provide testimonials in the most convenient way."
