Israel And Jews Around The World Mark Holocaust Remembrance Day

Jerusalem – A 24-hour period designated by Israel as Holocaust Remembrance Day concluded in the early hours of Thursday evening._During that night, all public institutions of the first Jewish state in 1,900 years devoted themselves to the memory of the six million Jews who were murdered at the instigation of the Nazis between 1939 and 1945. Indeed, how such a crime could take place occupies the consciousness of the Israeli public for the entirety of the day, as it dominated radio, TV, newspapers, schools and events throughout Israel.

There remains one pervasive theme in almost every aspect of Holocaust Remembrance Day history lessons, as related by survivors: Those who suffered the Nazi horrors almost universally felt isolated and abandoned to their fate. The Nazi method of persecuting communities in stages often placed Jewish communities under the delusive illusion that “it would not happen to them.”_

This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day was characterized by something unusual: 14 Gaza missile attacks on the Western Negev region of Israel during Wednesday evening and 12 Gaza missile attacks on the following morning.__

On Wednesday night, a siren sounded in a collective agricultural “moshav” settlement near Ashkelon.

“I was in the house and suddenly I heard a powerful explosion,” said Nitza Friedman, a farmer. “Right away I realized that it was a missile fired from Gaza.”

The rocket fell between Ms. Friedman’s house and that of her neighbor, but no damage was caused. Ms. Friedman suffered from shock and was evacuated by ambulance to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.

“This is too much for me,” she said. “Everything is mixed up. It was the first time it was so close to me. I’m hysterical. Usually I am a happy type, but now I’m sad and frightened. It’s not pleasant.”_

And on Thursday morning, while The Bulletin bureau was visiting the Sderot Media Center in the center of the small Sderot shopping district, sirens wailed out their warnings of missiles heading toward the border town. Three sirens blared, one after the other, in a matter of eight minutes. Standing on the porch of the Sderot Media Center, this reporter witnessed what looked like a scene out of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”: Tens of shoppers scrambling for cover, all of them knowing that they had 15 seconds until each missile would strike.

The sonorous booms were horrific, not far away. A police car and ambulance sped toward the place where two of the three missiles had fallen – both on a sidewalk. Two staffers of the Sderot Media Center, armed with a TV-quality camera in hand, yelling “follow that cop,” jumped into their small car and scooped the first footage of the police and army bomb squads yanking the missiles out of two sidewalk areas, while they also filmed two Israeli ambulances rushing three civilians to nearby hospitals, some of whom were in a state of shock. Another ambulance rushed to a school where a 10-year-old girl broke her leg falling down a flight of stairs while running for cover.

Nine more sirens blared over the next few hours. The other blasts hit the nearby collective agricultural kibbutz communities.

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2008