Yom Hashoa (Holocaust Remembrance Day)

On the eve of Yom Hashoa, my section and I had a short ceremony to commemorate it outside of out "Ulpan" building. During this ceremony, a few idiots from the area thought that it would be funny to walk into our circle completely disrupting everything. It was absolutely disgusting. Here we were, trying to be respectful to the people who perished in the Holocausts and these guys are screaming during our moment of silence and yelling over our counselors voices. And for what? A few laughs?  At first, I wanted to stop and go somewhere else but then I realized that then these guys would win. We continued the ceremony as planned ignoring the disturbances around us because that is what our ancestors deserve.
The next morning, I had volunteering very early and missed the siren. In Israel, there is a nationwide siren in the morning of Yom Hashoa and the entire country shuts down. A minute of silence is taken and when it is over, life continues. The most amazing place to watch this happen is overlooking the main highway here. You can see the cars stopping and everyone getting out to pay their respects.

Video of the siren this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s24x68QNmxQ

The rest of the day was very emotional for me. We had a program and another ceremony led by the scouts. We read testimonies and sang songs doing our best to commemorate the lives that were lost. After visiting Poland this year, my knowledge of the Holocaust grew so much and the whole day I was thinking about my trip. About all the places I went to and all of the stories I read about. One of the stories that we read during the program was a story that was also told to me in Poland. A story that I will never forget. It is of a young couple in the Holocaust that met in Auschwitz and fell in love. One day, she was called to the "hospital" to be sterilized. Of course, the doctor that was doing the job was Jewish. She cried in front of him begging him not to do it but it didn't help. Somehow both she and her boyfriend suvived the war and they got married and made Aliyah to Israel. After a few months, she started to gain a lot of weight and she didn't understand why. The Jewish doctor never sterilized her and because of that, she was pregnant!!! Sadly, the doctor ended up losing his life because the Nazis caught him. But this story always brings tears to my eyes.

NEVER AGAIN.