Israelis Commemorate Victims of Holocaust

Sirens sounded throughout Israel for two minutes Sunday, and Israelis halted all activity to remember the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust.

The siren blast opened a day marked with somber ceremonies, sad songs and tears. Memorial services were held throughout the country over the weekend. Movie theaters and other places of entertainment were closed. Radio stations played solemn music and broadcast interviews with Holocaust survivors.

Officials noted a greater interest in the the World War II Holocaust than in previous years, especially among young Israelis, and attributed it to the Nazi war crimes trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, a retired Ohio auto worker.

Holocaust Day, officially called Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day, marks the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, when Jews armed with homemade weapons battled German tanks in the Polish capital.

Commemorations began Saturday night with an outdoor ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, at which President Chaim Herzog formally bestowed “memorial citizenship” on the 6 million victims in a service at the museum.

Memorial to Cities

On Sunday, hundreds of people attended a ceremony at Yad Vashem to unveil parts of the Valley of the Destroyed Communities, a memorial to the 5,000 Jewish communities crushed by the Nazis in the war.

“We will learn not to rely on anything but our own strength,” Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told the audience. “We will learn that nothing exists but our land, and we must cling to it so that it doesn’t disappear from under our feet.

“Six million people, 2 million children, 5,000 communities. The same Europe which was witness to the greatest flowering of the spirit of our time is for Jews today an enormous cemetery,” Peres said.

“Here in Jerusalem, the capital of eternal Israel, we shall perpetuate those who are no longer among the living, and we will be able to carry on life to ensure the eternal presence of the Jewish people,” he said.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said Israel cannot forget or forgive the crimes of the Holocaust, and therefore West Germany and other nations should desist from supplying enemies of the Jewish state with arms.

Herzog, 68, made the first visit of an Israeli head of state to West Germany in April. Bonn has ruled out exporting such weapons as tanks to Saudi Arabia but left the door open for possible sales of submarines.

“Everywhere that we go, the army of the shadows of the 6 million will accompany us,” said Shamir at Yad Vashem. “They’ll pour their great strength into our sinews. They’ll make us strong.”

Restaurants Closed

Blue-and-white Israeli flags flew at half-staff, and all restaurants and places of entertainment remained closed from the end of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown Saturday to Sunday night.

Thousands of Israelis attended 90 other services in memory of those who died in gas chambers, ovens and by other means during World War II as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution” to exterminate the Jews.

Officials said the Demjanjuk trial, which is broadcast live on radio and television, had sparked greater interest in the Holocaust.