Israel observes minute's silence to honor Shoah victims
Sirens wail throughout country as Israelis remember 6 million Jews that perished in the Holocaust as a result of Nazi persecution.
By JPOST.COM STAFFAushwitz 521(photo credit: Frank D. Smith)
Sirens wailed throughout the country at 10 a.m on Monday as people observed a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Nazi persecution on Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.Thousands of Israelis took part in the moment of silence, including many drivers who stopped their cars, a familiar scene on memorial days in Israel.Many government officials, including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres attended an official ceremony at Yad Vashem.RELATED:Opinion: Gathering the fragments Opinion: The future of Holocaust educationHolocaust Remembrance Day can trigger anxiety, lonelinessOn Sunday evening, Netanyahu said at the official state ceremony held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem that the world has not learned the lessons of the Holocaust but Israel has. The prime minister said the Jewish state was capable of defending itself against any potential threat.This year, the central theme of the ceremony was Fragments of Memory: The Faces Behind the Documents, Artifacts and Photographs, a campaign launched by the Holocaust museum aimed at collecting and preserving documents so that future generations may learn about the genocide of the Jewish people by the Nazis from first-hand sources.The closing ceremony of the day will take place at Yad Mordechai, the kibbutz adjacent to Gaza named after Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who was killed in the fighting.
