Israel’s Jews halted all activities for one minute today observing the annual Day of Remembrance in memory of the 6,000,000 European Jewish men, women and children who were slain by the Nazis.
After a solemn evening last night in which all places of entertainment were closed, traffic suddenly halted and the people stood silently as air raid sirens signaled the moment of remembrance. Special memorial parades were held at schools and services were held at synagogues. Chief Rabbi Isser Yehuda Untermann attended the prayers in the Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv. A memorial rally was held in the main auditorium.
Premier Levi Eshkol and Dr. Nahum Goldmann attended an unveiling ceremony in Tel Aviv at a monument in memory of the 800,000 Jews murdered in the Treblinka death camp. The monument contains bones and ashes of the victims brought to Israel by a special Israeli delegation of former Polish Jews who visited Poland last year.
Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin and Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, spoke at the annual memorial mass rally in Tel Aviv. Kol Israel broadcast material on the Holocaust, including a specially relayed British Broadcasting Corporation program with comments from the first British Army officers to reach the Bergen-Belsen camp.
Earlier in the day a monument in memory of the more than 1,000,000 Jewish child victims of the Holocaust was unveiled on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. The 16-foot monument was done by the famous sculptor Nathan Rapaport and brought here from Italy.
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