Israel is set to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day on Monday night, but while the conflict with Iran has reached a fragile ceasefire, events and ceremonies have already been disrupted due to the threat of Iranian missile attacks and corresponding safety regulations.
On Thursday, the Government Press Office announced that the annual state ceremony at Yad Vashem would be prerecorded and broadcast on Monday night.
The announcement came just a day after the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran announced a tenuous two-week ceasefire.
Despite a pause in Iranian missile salvos against Israel and a relaxation of Home Front safety regulations, Yad Vashem on Sunday confirmed that there would still be no live ceremony.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog are set to give addresses that will be broadcast as part of the ceremony.
The prime minister, president, Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit, and Knesset Speaker MK Amir Ohana are also set to lay wreaths at the Holocaust memorial and museum on Tuesday morning, following the morning’s nationwide siren and moment of silence.
The official wreath-laying ceremony is also closed to the public, but before noon, a similar ceremony is open to all.
The Knesset’s memorial ceremony will also be prerecorded and broadcast after the official wreath-laying ceremony and during the recitation of the names of Holocaust victims in Yad Vashem’s Hall of Remembrance.
Herzog and Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan hosted the survivors participating in the state ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Saadia Bahat, Michael Sidko, Miriam Bar Lev, Moshe Harari, Ilana Falach, and Avigdor Neumann are lighting six memorial torches. Haviva Burst will deliver remarks, and Menachem Neeman will recite a prayer for the martyrs of the Nazi-orchestrated genocide.
'Memory must echo from generation to generation'
“This memory must echo from generation to generation. Every time I am moved anew. Men and women who saw Mengele, who were in the forests, who endured the ghettos and the concentration camps, and here they are with us,” Herzog said at the President’s Residence on Sunday.
“This is a privilege that places upon us a duty: to tell and pass on, to ensure that ‘never again’ becomes reality. We are in a constant struggle to defend our state, our name, and our right to live as a free people, and certainly here, in the nation-state of the Jewish people, the State of Israel.”
The difficulty in planning for Holocaust remembrance ceremonies during war and an Iranian blitz has also troubled initiatives such as Zikaron Basalon.
The initiative, which organizes and facilitates events for Holocaust survivors to share their stories at homes, had entered the Passover holiday with plans to host the intimate ceremonies in bomb shelters and safe rooms.
Even with the ceasefire brokered by the US and Iran, participants, volunteers, and survivors have been concerned that the temporary peace could quickly collapse. Zikaron Basalon said that some survivors were afraid to leave their homes under the specter of a return of the missile barrages and air raid sirens.
Consequently, the initiative is adapting to hold more ceremonies at the homes of survivors so that they won’t need to leave. On Sunday, one Israeli survivor participated in an Indian Zikaron Basalon event through Zoom. Similar events will continue to be held throughout the world by Diaspora communities.
Zikaron Basalon said that in the face of all the difficulties in planning and the war, it was heartening to see immense interest from those seeking to participate. There will be slightly fewer events than in previous years, but the demand has not diminished at all, said the organizing body.
In one such ceremony on Tuesday, foreign diplomats are set to hear from a survivor in Jerusalem. A representative of the organization explained the necessity of listening to the testimony and experiences of the survivors and that it would be the responsibility of descendants to keep their stories alive in future Zikaron Basalon events.