Posted By  richards on April 8, 2013    
				
				By ARON HELLER  Associated Press  
    JERUSALEM (AP) - Among the crowds marking Israel's annual    Holocaust remembrance day at the Yad Vashem memorial Monday was    a retired American Air Force colonel from San Francisco who    came to honor a family he never knew.  
    Bertrand Huchberger was too young to remember his parents, who    sent him and his older sister from Paris into the French    countryside to escape the Nazi roundups during World War II.    For three years he was hidden by Christian rescuers, including    a prostitute, before he was put into an orphanage and adopted    by American Jews when he was 11 and taken to New York.  
    Now 75, Huchberger took part in a rite that has become a    centerpiece of the Israel's annual memorial day for the 6    million Jews killed in the genocide by reading the names of his    dead relatives: his parents, Alexander and Elenora Noz, and his    brother, Albert, who stayed behind in Paris. All were killed.  
    "It is still settling in. It was just overwhelming. This place    is 'terra sancta' (holy ground) for people who have been    associated with the Holocaust," said Huchberger, who has only a    single photograph to remember his family. "Now I feel that I    find myself and my heritage, and it's just uplifting ... it    helps build a spiritual bridge to my parents."  
    The ceremony, known as "Every Person Has a Name," tries to go    beyond the incomprehensible numbers to personalize the stories    of individuals, families and communities destroyed during the    war. At the Knesset, Israel's parliament, President Shimon    Peres, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials    also read names of their relatives murdered in the Holocaust.  
    In an annual ritual, the country came to a standstill at 10    a.m. Monday to honor the victims when sirens wailed for    two-minutes across the country. Pedestrians stood in place,    buses stopped on busy streets and cars pulled over on major    highways, their drivers standing on the roads with their heads    bowed.  
    In homes and businesses, people stopped what they were doing to    pay homage to the victims of the Nazi genocide, in which a    third of world Jewry was annihilated.  
    A wreath laying ceremony at Yad Vashem followed, with Israeli    leaders, Holocaust survivors and visiting U.S. Secretary of    State John Kerry in attendance. Other ceremonies, prayers and    musical performances took place in schools, community centers    and army bases.  
    The annual remembrance is 1 of the most solemn on Israel's    calendar. Restaurants, cafes and places of entertainment shut    down, and radio and TV programming were dedicated almost    exclusively to documentaries about the Holocaust, interviews    with survivors and somber music. The Israeli flag flew at    half-staff.  
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Israel honors 6 million victims of Nazi Holocaust - Quincy Herald-Whig | Illinois & Missouri News, Sports
				
Category: Jewish American Heritage Month |  
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