Photos of Remembrance Day

    JERUSALEM, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Sirens sounded across Israel at 10 a.m. (0700 GMT) Tuesday, bringing the whole nation to a halt to mark the observance of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day.

Israeli Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert speaks during the ceremony for the country's annual memorial day for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust of World War II, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, April 24, 2006. (Photo: Xinhua)

    Israelis in workplaces, schools, and on city streets all stood at attention in a two-minute silence. Motorists stopped their cars at the sides of major highways and stood beside their vehicles.

    Israeli people marked the event beginning at sunset Monday by closing bars, discos and other places of entertainment. Television and radio stations broadcast stories of the Holocaust survivors, Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported.

    This year's state ceremony also began Monday evening with the central assembly at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, which was attended by Israeli leaders, Holocaust survivors and foreign diplomats.

    On Monday evening, during an hour-long event to reflect the theme of "Humanity in the Shadow of Death", six torches were lit by Holocaust survivors in memory of the six million Jewish victims killed in the Holocaust during World War II.

    The chief rabbis recited a selection from Psalms and kaddish, the Jewish mourning prayer.

    An estimated 250,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel, about one-third of them living in poverty, according to recent social welfare reports cited by Ha'aretz. Enditem

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