Nation comes to standstill as sirens wail for 6 million lost

Two-minute Holocaust commemoration precedes ceremonies across country to mark annual memorial day

  • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath of flowers during the official state ceremony for the national Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem, on April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Haim Zach/GPO/Flash 90)
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lays a wreath of flowers during the official state ceremony for the national Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Museum Yad Vashem, on April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Haim Zach/GPO/Flash 90)
  • File: IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, left, seen with Hatnua head Tzipi Livni, right, at a ceremony at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak as Israel marked the Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 27, 2014. (Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
    File: IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, left, seen with Hatnua head Tzipi Livni, right, at a ceremony at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak as Israel marked the Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 27, 2014. (Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
  • Former Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner light a torch during a ceremony at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, as Israel marks the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
    Former Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner light a torch during a ceremony at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak, as Israel marks the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
  • Israelis stand next to their cars at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, as a two minute siren marking Holocaust Remembrance Day is sounded across Israel, April 28, 2014. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
    Israelis stand next to their cars at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, as a two minute siren marking Holocaust Remembrance Day is sounded across Israel, April 28, 2014. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
  • People stand still on Jaffa street in central Jerusalem as a two-minute siren is sounded across Israel to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 28, 2014. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
    People stand still on Jaffa street in central Jerusalem as a two-minute siren is sounded across Israel to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 28, 2014. (photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash 90)
  • President Shimon Peres lays a wreath of flowers during the official State ceremony for the national Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Museum Yad VaShem, on Monday, April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Haim Zach/GPO/Flash 90)
    President Shimon Peres lays a wreath of flowers during the official State ceremony for the national Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Museum Yad VaShem, on Monday, April 27, 2014. (photo credit: Haim Zach/GPO/Flash 90)
  • Israelis mark Holocaust Remembrance day in Jerusalem. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
    Israelis mark Holocaust Remembrance day in Jerusalem. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Millions of Israelis paused for two minutes Monday in solemn silence as air raid sirens wailed across the country to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The annual commemoration for the 6 million Jews killed in Europe during the Holocaust brought the country to a standstill at 10 a.m., with drivers standing alongside their cars on highways and normally bustling city centers freezing for the funereal event.

After the sirens, a number of remembrance ceremonies were planned for across the country, including a wreath-laying at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem and the “Unto Every Person There is a Name” ceremony at the Knesset.

In Poland, thousands of Israeli and Jewish youth and others will march from the infamous Auschwitz labor camp to the Birkenau death camp as part of the annual March of the Living memorial.

Events for the commemoration day began Sunday night at 8 p.m. with a state ceremony at Yad Vashem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned at the ceremony that the world was ignoring the lessons of the Shoah by allowing Iran to continue its nuclear program.

“I hope that the lessons of the past will be learned and that the desire to avoid confrontation at any cost will not lead to a deal that will exact a much heavier price in the future,” he said, referring to negotiations between Tehran and six world powers over uranium enrichment levels. “I call on the leaders of the world powers to insist on a full dismantling of Iran’s capability to manufacture nuclear weapons, and to persist until this goal is achieved.”

President Shimon Peres, speaking at the same ceremony, called on the world to pay attention to the threat of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

“We must not ignore any occurrence of anti-Semitism, any desecration of a synagogue, any tombstone smashed in a cemetery in which our families are buried,” he said. “We must not ignore the rise of extreme right-wing parties with neo-Nazi tendencies who are a danger to each of us and a threat to every nation.”

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