Israel marks national Holocaust Remembrance Day

Israel on Tuesday commemorated the Jewish resistance and the millions of Jewish men, women and children who were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Yom HaShoah — the Holocaust Remembrance Day — has been observed in Israel since 1951.

Israel comes to a standstill

Wailing sirens across Israel brought life to a standstill, with cars and trucks coming to a halt on motorways so that citizens could remember the 6 million Jewish people who were murdered.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog placed wreaths at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial before a ceremony in the Knesset during which names of Holocaust victims were read out.

Herzog made a plea for unity as he spoke on Monday in Jerusalem.

"We are one people and one people we shall remain, brought together not only by a painful history, but also by our shared, hope-filled future and fate."

In Germany, the Israeli embassy commemorated the millions who were murdered with a ceremony at the Sachsenhausen Memorial, the site of a Nazi concentration camp, on Tuesday.

German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann denounced the Nazi regime's crimes at the the commemoration event. "We will feel the shame forever," he said.

Eightieth anniversary of Warsaw ghetto uprising

This year also marks the 80th anniversary of Jewish resistance against German SS troops in the Warsaw Ghetto, which began on April 19, 1943.

It was the largest Jewish ghetto in German-occupied Europe and was established by the Nazis in 1940 to confine 400,000 people.

On the eve of the uprising, a few dozen survivors led the 'March of the Living', trek held at Auschwitz-Birkenau in southern Poland, to remember the victims of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Each year, thousands of people from around the world take part in the event held at the site of the former death camp which the Nazis built following the invasion of Poland in 1939.

Auschwitz is the German name for the Polish city Oswiecim.

Of the 1.3 million deported to the camp, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered, the vast majority being Jews.

The camp was eventually liberated by the Red Army in January 1945.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected to attend a commemoration ceremony in the Polish capital on Wednesday, at the invitation of Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Israeli Head of State Isaac Herzog will also take part in the ceremony.

kb,jcg (dpa, AFP)