Plan your Visit to Yad Vashem
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Yad Vashem is open to the general public, free of charge. All visits to Yad Vashem must be reserved in advance.

Address by President of the State of Israel, H.E. Mr. Moshe Katsav

State Opening Ceremony of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day 2002

Today, 27th Nissan, the people of Israel bow their heads in memory of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The memory of the Holocaust accompanies us throughout our lives, and is part of our collective and individual identity and heritage. The Holocaust is an open wound on the body of the Jewish people that has not healed, either psychologically or demographically.   The Jewish people lost a part of Jewish life in the inferno of the Holocaust, and left part of its soul in the extermination camps. Demographically speaking too, our numbers have not yet returned to the pre- war figure of 18 million Jews in the world.  The trauma of the Holocaust will forever constitute an integral part of our being.