A traditional commemoration was held at Zagreb's central Mirogoj cemetery on Sunday to mark Yom Hashoah or Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The event was attended by Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, Justice Minister Orsat Miljenic, representatives of several embassies and religious communities.
The president of the Jewish Community Zagreb, Ognjen Kraus, said there was no day in the Jewish calendar that was more sad that Yom Hashoah. Yom Hashoah is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany and its accessories, and for the Jewish resistance in that period.
He recalled the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Israeli Ambassador to Croatia Yosef Amrani said the universal message of Yom Hashoah was that there should be no routine in commemorative events. Although we cannot change the past, it is our duty to secure a better future, prerequisites for which are remembrance and education.
A prayer for those killed was said by rabi Luciano Mose Prelevic and Gregor Kurtovic.
Yom Hashoah is held on the 27th of Nisan (April/May) since 1951 when the Knesset adopted a decidion commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in spring 1943.
