A two-minute siren wailed across Israel on Thursday, as the country came to a halt in the memory of the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
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Holocaust Remembrance Day events got underway on Wednesday evening at a state ceremony at the national memorial Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem.
Hundreds gathered Thursday morning in front of the museum's Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial for a wreath-laying ceremony, among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Reuven Rivlin, Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, and Supreme Court President Esther Hayut.
Various events and ceremonies will take place throughout Thursday, with special programming on the media, including testimonies of survivors and documentaries retelling their ordeal.
At 11 a.m. began the annual "Unto Every Person There is a Name" ceremony at the Knesset's Chagall state hall, during which lawmakers read out the names of Holocaust victims.
"The wish to commemorate our dead is deeply rooted in human nature, and this ceremony expresses it even more, and takes on a new meaning for our people, for we have lost millions," said Netanyahu, who attended the ceremony.
"My father-in-law, Shlomo Ben-Artzi, escaped the Holocaust, but the burden of the Holocaust did not leave him for a moment. My father-in-law never agreed to revisit his birthplace. He asked us in his will that the names of his family members be engraved on his grave," the prime minister said.
Rivlin spoke of the family of his late wife Nechama, that perished in the Holocaust. In the last year of her life, when her health condition did not allow her to attend, I used to read the names of her family members for her, the president said. "There are matters that stand in the Holy of Holies of our people, and it is important to raise the torch of memory that, so it will not be distinguished."
The event began with the lighting of six memorial candles, which were lit by six Holocaust survivors. Chief Rabbi David Lau recited psalms at the ceremony, and MK Yaakov Margi read the traditional mourner's prayer.
Speaking at Wednesday's event, Rivlin called on Israelis to embrace Holocaust survivors as they struggle with their old age and the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Some 900 died because of the virus; they survived the death camp and the ghettos, the detention and the journey to Israel, but they waged their final battle behind masks, frightened," Rivlin said. "They were thirsty for contact with others, and tonight our thoughts and prayers go out to them and their families," he continued.
Speaking about his upcoming departure from office as his term ends, Rivlin vowed that he would not relinquish his duties to keep Holocaust survivors in mind. "Despite my presidency coming to an end, I will never end my commitment as a human being, Jew and Israeli to remember you and to remind others about the Holocaust and teach people the values you have instilled on all of us."
The concluding event of the day was held at a kibbutz in northern Israel, Lohamei HaGeta'ot (the "fighters of the ghettos"). During the ceremony, survivors lit torches in memory of those who perished. The ceremony's theme this year was on "lone survivors" – those who were the only ones left in their family.
i24NEWS contributed to this report.
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