Jews mourn Holocaust victims

JERUSALEM, May 5: Israeli flags flew at half-staff, more than 2,000 teenagers marched to the ruins of the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and Germans read aloud the names of nearly 56,000 Nazi victims in an annual day of mourning for the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust.

“Never again will the threat of annihilation hang over our children,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a ceremony, in Jerusalem. “Never again will they have to live in fear and terror,” he said in a voice choked with emotion.

At Oswiecim, Poland, site of the notorious Auschwitz death camp, about 2,500 Jewish teenagers from around the world marched to the ruins of the gas chambers, retracing the steps of the people who died there.

Many of the participants lost relatives in the holocaust.

“It is a very important part of my family history,” said Lauren Eber, an 18-year-old high school student from San Francisco.