Memorial Day: Israel commemorates victims of the Holocaust

Sirens wailed nationwide, many cars stood still: Israel commemorated the victims of the Holocaust in the morning. This year, the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto 80 years ago is remembered in particular.

Israel commemorated the Jewish resistance and the six million Jews who were murdered during the Nazi era. Sirens wailed nationwide for two minutes in the morning. Cars stopped on the streets, passers-by paused in silent remembrance.

Yom Hashoah has been observed in Israel since 1951. This year commemorates the Jewish uprising against German SS troops in the Warsaw Ghetto, which began on April 19, 1943. The desperate fight against the numerically far superior Germans ended about four weeks later. Only a few Warsaw Jews survived the suppression by German troops.

147,199 Holocaust survivors in Israel

On Wednesday, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will give a speech at the central commemoration ceremony in Warsaw. According to estimates, the German National Socialists and their accomplices murdered around six million Jews during the Nazi regime (1933 to 1945).

According to official figures, 147,199 Holocaust survivors are still living in Israel. 61 percent of them are women. About 38 percent of the survivors were born during World War II. A good fifth are now over 90 years old. Around 4.5 percent of the survivors came to the country before the state of Israel was founded in 1948, and almost a third immediately afterwards.