Israel observes 2 min silence in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day

On one of the most solemn days on Israel’s national calendar, much of the country shuts down on Thursday to honor the six million victims of the Nazi Holocaust with a series of memorial events and ceremonies. Traffic halts for a two-minutes of silence at 10 a.m. Wreaths are laid at the Yad Vashem memorial center, followed by the recitation of the names of the victims of the Nazi genocide at the Knesset and Yad Vashem. The March of the Living takes place at midday at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp in Poland. The day ends with assemblies at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot and Kibbutz Yad Mordecai, named for the leaders of the Ghetto Uprising. Addresses at all ceremonies noted the sharp rise in anti-Semitic incidents worldwide, especially in West Europe and the United States.