Life came to a standstill in Israel in the streets, at work, and in schools for two minutes at 10 a.m. this Thursday, to the mournful sound of sirens, on Holocaust Remembrance Day in memory of the six million Jewish victims of Nazism.
In Nice, civil and religious authorities, associations, and Jewish citizens gathered at the Château’s Jewish cemetery for a ceremony in memory of the 3,612 people from Nice (including over 400 children) who were sent to their deaths in the extermination camps.
Three women who survived this ordeal were present to bear witness to the victory of life over death and good over evil.
The symbolic place and the gray sky made the atmosphere laden with emotion and compassion, and the reading of the names of the young victims of the Nazis’ madness was conducted in solemn silence, an act of duty to remember.
This commemoration also calls for a general responsibility: the duty of remembrance so that anti-Semitism, which still exists, is countered by educating young people about respect and tolerance.
The ceremony concluded with the prayer Mole Hanachim and the Kaddish, a minute of silence, the song performed by the ‘Avive’ Choir, and the lighting of six candles in memory of the six million who died in the Holocaust.
