Sirens wailed across Israel Tuesday in remembrance of victims of the Holocaust, with citizens briefly standing in silence and motorists stopping their cars at the sides of major highways.
Commemorations honoring the estimated six million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II were held at Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
Thousands of people also marched in silence in southern Poland at the site of the Auschwitz death camp. Former Israeli Prime Minister and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shimon Peres joined the commemoration.
A shofar, or ram's horn sounded as about 8,000 people began the three-kilometer trek to the gas chambers at Birkenau, where the Nazis killed at least 1.1 million Jews, Roma (Gypsies) and others.
The first such march was held 20 years ago and now takes place as an annual memorial to the victims of Nazi Germany's extermination campaign.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
