Remembrance Day for the Holocaust and 2nd WW heroism, is known in Israel and outside the country as Yom Ha’Shoah and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In year 2015 it will occur on April 16.

This day commemorates the remembrance for the nearly six million Jews who were slaughtered during the Holocaust. In Israel, it is a national memorial day.

Yom Ha’Shoah was instituted in 1951, in a law endorsed by the Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion and the President of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Zvi. The date was finally settled to be on the 27th of Nisan, which is 8 days ahead of Yom Ha’atzmaut, -Israel’s Independence Day.

A special siren of one minute is sounded on that day, by which the public in Israel stands at attention, in respect of the memory of the dead. It is customary that traffic stops and drivers step out of the cars, in order to stand attention during the sounding of the siren.