<p>JERUSALEM — Israelis stood in silence on Thursday as a two-minute siren wailed across the country in remembrance of the Holocaust’s 6 million Jewish victims.</p>
<p>Public buses and cars stopped on the streets and highways, and pedestrians stood in place in memory of those killed in the Nazi genocide.</p>
<p>The annual memorial is one of the most somber days in the Israeli calendar, marking the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising — the most significant act of Jewish resistance against Nazi Germany during the Holocaust.</p>
<p>The Holocaust is a keystone element of Israeli public consciousness. Israel was founded in 1948, three years after the end of World War II and the genocide. As a place of refuge for Jews across the world, hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors who had lost their homes and families fled there.</p>
<p>Starting at sundown on Wednesday, Israeli television and radio shifted over to Holocaust remembrance broadcasting, and restaurants and other entertainment shut down. </p>
<p>Fewer than 180,000 Holocaust survivors remain in Israel. President Reuven Rivlin said Wednesday in a speech at Yad Vashem, the world Holocaust remembrance center, that 900 survivors died during the past year’s coronavirus pandemic. </p>
<p>Speaking at Wednesday’s memorial, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged world leaders not to renew a nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that “history has taught us that deals like this, with extremist regimes like this, are worth nothing.” </p>
