Israel came to a standstill at exactly 10am on Tuesday morning as sirens wailed across the country to mark the annual Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance day.

Throughout the day ceremonies were held in schools all over the State to remember the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during WW2,

Events were held at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem both on Tuesday morning and Wednesday evening, including a reading of the names of Holocaust victims which took place immediately after the siren.

Serious situation

Israel takes Yom HaShoah extremely seriously and across the country everyone stopped what they were doing and stood still as the sirens were sounded. Cars halted in the middle of the road and drivers got out and stood for a moment of reflection.

Every school is required by law to hold a ceremony and educational programmes about the systematic slaughter of Jews in Europe from 1939 to 1945.

On Monday night all businesses, restaurants and bars closed from sundown and all locally broadcast television channels were either switched off or showed only Holocaust related programmes.

The day began at 8pm on Monday evening when the three main TV stations in Israel – channel 1, channel 2 and channel 10 - simultaneously broadcast the official opening ceremony of Yom Hashoah live from Yad Vashem.

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Both interim prime minister Ehud Olmert and president Moshe Katsav and gave emotional addresses.

Solemn speeches

Katsav spoke first, calling on the free world to take issue with regimes which call for the destruction of Israel and Jews.

In an implicit reference to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has continuously spoken of his belief that Israel should be destroyed, Katsav said:

"In our aspirations for peace, we have gone a long way to accommodate our enemies, but we will never succumb to illusions, and will not underestimate those who plan our downfall. We stand determined and strong in defense of our people, and will thwart any attempt to harm the Jewish state.

Never again!”

Holocaust remembrance and Iran

The commemorations at Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial were marked by warnings about the intentions of Iran Presidedent Ahmadinejad who has called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map." Shimon Peres, Israel's former prime minister, drew a direct comparison between Ahmadinejad and the leader of Nazi Germany in an interview from Poland where he was to lead the March of the Living. "This is the first man since Hitler to stand up and say that the Jewish people must be exterminated," the Nobel peace prize winner told public radio. "Hitler prepared the extermination camps, he (Ahmadinejad) wants a (nuclear) bomb for what he says are 'civilian needs'," said Peres. "We know perfectly well what his real intentions are and that's why we must take his declarations so seriously." Iran announced earlier this month that scientists had successfully enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel although it insists its programme is designed only to meet energy needs. Israel is convinced that the real intention is to develop the bomb. Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz had said earlier in the day that Ahmadinejad was "one the world's most dangerous leaders since Hitler" and that Israel was now facing an existential threat from Iran. Many analysts drew similar comparisons, noting that Ahmadinejad's latest anti-Israel diatribe on Monday, when he said that the "fake" Jewish state "cannot survive", came on the eve of Holocaust memorial day.

And speaking of the importance of remembering what happened to the Jews of Europe in the early 1940s, he added: “It is up to us to pass the legacy of the Holocaust from generation to generation. In the future, there will be people who will try and minimize the extent of the Holocaust.

“We must ensure that each generation sees itself as the one that emerged from the inferno of the Holocaust.”

Olmert stated his feelings about the importance of the State of Israel as a place where all Jews can live and feel welcome, without the threat of anti-Semitism.

“As a Jew, I always carry in my heart the seal of pain over the Holocaust of my brothers and sisters,” Olmert said. “But I am proud that we are the sworn enemy of the Nazi evil; I am proud of the heritage of our forefathers which is the absolute contradiction of the Hitlerian racial and murder doctrine; and I am proud of the founding of the State of Israel - the definitive moral answer to the enemy’s scheme.”

The day will continue with the traditional Holocaust assembly held by Council of Youth Movements in Israel (CYMI) at Yad Vashem’s community valley on Tuesday evening.

Around 500 teenagers will take part in the ceremony which will be attended by education minister Meir Sheetrit.