Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined the rest of his country in remembering victims of the genocide. The ceremonies will last until Monday evening.
Image: picture alliance/ZUMAPRESS/Jinipix
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday by saying the lessons of the Holocaust guide him "every morning and every evening," and warned Israel's opponents not to test him.
Netanyahu spoke at the main ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, and issued a stark warning to those who threaten to destroy Israel. His message was directed at Iran and the so-called Islamic State (IS) in particular.
"Iran and the Islamic State want to destroy us, and a hatred for Jews is being directed towards the Jewish state today," said Netanyahu, adding, "those who threaten to destroy us risk being destroyed themselves."
Netanyahu added that Israel became a strong state in the wake of the genocide by Nazi Germany and its collaborators that killed one-third of all Jews in the world at the time.
"From being defenseless people, we have become a state with a defensive capacity that is among the strongest in the world," said Netanyahu.
The Holocaust killed 6 million Jews in ghettos and concentration camps during World War II. Along with the main ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, six Holocaust survivors lit torches in memory of the victims of the atrocity. Israeli flags were lowered to half-mast across the country. Israel will come to a complete halt for two minutes at 10 a.m. local time (0700 UTC) on Monday for reflection as sirens wail in remembrance.
More than 213,000 Holocaust survivors currently live in Israel, with many of them living in poverty, according to survivors' groups.
Support from the US
US President Donald Trump, a strong ally to Netanyahu, also observed Holocaust Remembrance Day in a video message.
"The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror and the loss. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jews in Europe, murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by an evil that words cannot describe, and that the human heart cannot bear," said Trump in a speech to the World Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly in New York.
Trump also vowed to fight anti-Semitism.
"We must stamp out prejudice and anti-Semitism everywhere it is found," said Trump.
kbd/bw (AFP, AP, Reuters)
The men who led Nazi Germany
The German National Socialist Workers' party profoundly affected the course of 20th-century world history with their ideology, propaganda and crimes. Who were the key leaders of the movement?
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)
As Hitler's Propaganda Minister, the virulently anti-Semitic Goebbels was responsible for making sure a single, iron-clad Nazi message reached every citizen of the Third Reich. He strangled freedom of the press, controlled all media, arts, and information, and pushed Hitler to declare "Total War." He and his wife committed suicide in 1945, after poisoning their six children.
Image: picture-alliance/Everett Collection
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
The leader of the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazi) developed his anti-Semitic, anti-communist and racist ideology well before coming to power as Chancellor in 1933. He undermined political institutions to transform Germany into a totalitarian state. From 1939 to 1945, he led Germany in World War II while overseeing the Holocaust. He committed suicide in April 1945.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945)
As leader of the Nazi paramilitary SS ("Schutzstaffel"), Himmler was one of the Nazi party members most directly responsible for the Holocaust. He also served as Chief of Police and Minister of the Interior, thereby controlling all of the Third Reich's security forces. He oversaw the construction and operations of all extermination camps, in which more than 6 million Jews were murdered.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Rudolf Hess (1894-1987)
Hess joined the Nazi party in 1920 and took part in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a failed Nazi attempt to gain power. While in prison, he helped Hitler write "Mein Kampf." Hess flew to Scotland in 1941 to attempt a peace negotiation, where he was arrested and held until the war's end. In 1946, he stood trial in Nuremberg and was sentenced to life in prison, where he died.
Image: Getty Images/Central Press
Adolf Eichmann (1906-1962)
Alongside Himmler, Eichmann was one of the chief organizers of the Holocaust. As an SS Lieutenant colonel, he managed the mass deportations of Jews to Nazi extermination camps in Eastern Europe. After Germany's defeat, Eichmann fled to Austria and then to Argentina, where he was captured by the Israeli Mossad in 1960. Tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity, he was executed in 1962.
Image: AP/dapd
Hermann Göring (1893-1946)
A participant in the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Göring became the second-most powerful man in Germany once the Nazis took power. He founded the Gestapo, the Secret State Police, and served as Luftwaffe commander until just before the war's end, though he increasingly lost favor with Hitler. Göring was sentenced to death at Nuremberg but committed suicide the night before it was enacted.
