Melancholy music is floating over the airwaves and tales of the fast-dwindling number of Holocaust survivors are dominating the media as Israel commemorates the 6 million Jews who perished during the Holocaust.
Looming over the annual memorial day is Israel's fear that the world will wake up too late to eliminate Iran's nuclear program as it woke up too late to eliminate the threat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Yad Vashem, Israel's state Holocaust memorial authority, picked "Voices of the Survivors" as the theme of this year's commemoration.
About 220,000 aging survivors live in Israel, down 50,000 from just two years earlier. Many are destitute and alone. At midmorning on Monday, air raid sirens will pierce the air, marking two minutes of silence in memory of the victims.