Israel mourns six million lives lost in Holocaust

The mournful wail of a siren today brought Israel, built on the ashes of the Nazi Holocaust, to a standstill as it remembered the six million Jews who perished during the World War II.

Roads came to a sombre standstill, people stopped in their tracks, and offices and schools put work on hold as the people with their heads bowed mourned to mark the Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sixty-five years after the end of the World War II, about 200,000 survivors of the Nazi death camps are still living, sharply down by 63,000 just two years ago.

Most of them are destitute and living alone as the Jewish state is home to the largest survivor community. 

Israel's leaders used the day to appeal to international community to act against Iran, and not act with indifference to its threats "wipe the Zionist regime off the map".

"The historic failure of free societies to confront the Nazi beast was that they did not face it in time," prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"And today we are witness to the old hatred of Jews once again, fueled by extremist Islamic authorities, led by Iran and its satellites."

Wreaths were laid at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, where the official state ceremony was
held attended by president Shimon Peres, prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff
Gabi Ashkenazi.

The Knesset held its annual Holocaust remembrance ceremony, dubbed "Unto every person a name," during which the names of Holocaust victims are read aloud.

Peres read the names of his own relatives and opposition leader Tzipi Livni chose to honour educators who continued working until they perished.

Prime minister Netanyahu read the names of his wife's relatives who died in the Holocaust and ministers and Knesset members read out names of other victims.

Peres said his family members were put inside a synagogue
and burnt alive.

"In memory of my relatives, who were massacred with 2,060 members of their community in the town of Vishneva, in August
1942, by the Nazis and their local helpers," the Nobel
laureate President said before reading out the names of his
grandfathers, grandmother, uncles and cousins.

In Poland, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky and Tel
Aviv Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the chairman of Yad Vashem,
will lead the annual 'March of the Living' from Auschwitz to
Birkenau.

The march will proceed as planned despite the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash in Russia.

Mordechai Fuchs, a holocaust survivor said he has been attending the Yad Vashem ceremony for over 40 years with a yellow patch attached to his clothes, carrying an Israel flag.

"We have a strong army, and I have children and grandchildren, and this is our real victory over the Nazis," he told PTI.

Fuchs said: "They failed to annihilate us. We have the strength and we defeated the Germans".

Comparing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's threats to wipe out Israel to Nazi propaganda against Jews, Israeli leaders appealed to the international community not to treat such incitements with indifference.

Netanyahu hit out at Iran's nuclear programme and said the international determination required to stop the arming of Iran was not strong.

"Iran's leadership is racing to develop nuclear weapons and declares its intention to destroy Israel. The world is gradually accepting Iran's exterminatory declarations regarding Israel and still we do not see the international determination required to stop the arming of Iran," he said.

"But if we learned something from the Holocaust, it is that we cannot remain quiet or flinch in the face of evil," the Israeli premier asserted.

In a strong plea to world leaders, Netanyahu called upon "to confront Iran's exterminatory intentions and act resolutely to stop it from obtaining nuclear weapons" at the state ceremony on the eve of the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Day at Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum).

Peres said the world must not repeat its indifference at the face of new cries for the destruction of the Jewish people. "Israel will never forget the two decrees which the Holocaust enforced," Peres said.

"The firm demand to sustain an independent Jewish state, one that holds its security in its own hands while at the same time tirelessly seeking peace as well as the demand to treat threats of annihilation, Holocaust denials, and terror mongering with the utmost severity," he said.