Fri, Apr 20, 2012 page6

• Peres tells own story at Holocaust event

  • AP, JERUSALEM
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  Israeli President Shimon Peres talked about his own family’s suffering at the hands of the Nazis in World War II, speaking at the opening of Peres and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on the world to “learn the lessons” of the Holocaust and stop Iran from acquiring atomic weapons.

  “The Iranian regime is acting openly and decisively toward our destruction, and it is acting feverishly to develop a nuclear weapon to achieve this goal,” Netanyahu said.

  Peres, who was born in the Polish town of Vishneva in 1923 and migrated to pre-state Israel before the war erupted, learned later how Nazi troops beat members of his extended family and ordered them to march toward the town’s synagogue.

  

  A Jewish man’s eyes well up with tears yesterday as the electric light tram system in Jerusalem comes to a stop for two minutes to mark Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day.

  Photo: EPA

  “Someone yelled ‘Jews, save yourselves!’ The Germans shot those who tried to escape. The rest arrived at the synagogue that was made of wood. Its doors were locked. They were all burned alive,” he said. “That was also the last day of Rabbi Zvi Meltzer, my grandfather, my mentor. He was burned with a prayer shawl on his head. That was the last Jewish day in Vishneva. Not a single living Jew remained.”

  Peres, 88, spoke at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial, before hundreds of Holocaust survivors and their families, Israeli leaders, diplomats and others.

  The Israeli flag flew at half staff and a military honor guard stood at one side of the podium as poems and psalms were read and the Jewish prayer for the dead was recited.

  Peres, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, linked the Nazi genocide to Iran’s suspected drive to acquire nuclear bombs and its leaders’ repeated references to the destruction of Israel.

  He said humanity “must learn the lessons of the Holocaust and face existential threats before it is too late.”

  “Iran is at the center of this threat. It is the center of terror. It poses a threat to world peace,” Peres said.

  Netanyahu also warned of the danger posed by Iran.

  “Those who dismiss the Iranian threat as a whim or an exaggeration haven’t learned a thing from the Holocaust,” he said. “To be deterred from telling the truth — that today, like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jews — that is disrespectful of the Holocaust. That is an insult to its victims and that is ignoring its lessons.”

  The wail of air raid sirens sounded across Israel yesterday, signaling the country to come to a standstill in tribute to 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

  For two minutes, pedestrians stopped in their tracks and motorists stood next to their vehicles, heads bowed. In homes and businesses, people suspended their daily tasks to pay homage to victims of the Nazi genocide.

  The day is one of the most solemn on Israel’s calendar. Restaurants and places of entertainment shut down, and radio and TV programming focuses on Holocaust documentaries and interviews with survivors. Ceremonies were scheduled at schools and other public institutions, including the public reading of names of Holocaust victims at parliament and other sites around the country.
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