Israel comes to a standstill for two minutes silence to honour Holocaust victims

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day for the Jewish people. On this day each year, a phenomenon takes place. At 10 am, sirens begin to sound throughout Israel and everything stops.

Highways that were busy before the siren suddenly come to a complete standstill and the drivers get out of there vehicles and stand next to their cars, often with the doors still open. Shopping malls too see busy shoppers suddenly stop, standing still where they were and bowing their heads in remembrance.

A day to commemorate the Holocaust for the Jewish people has taken place since 1951 and occurs each year on the 27th day of Nisan (which changes each year on our Gregorian calendar and this year falls on 2nd May) and is a day when the Jewish people remember those killed in the Holocaust.

The siren, or Tzfirah as it is called in Israel, was passed into law in 1959 to be sound on the morning of the Holocaust Remembrance Day every year. It gives Israelis a prompt to stop what they are doing for two minutes so they can remember the 6 million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. They do this so they never forget.