As it has done every year in recent years, the Beitar youth movement held a Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) ceremony in front of the German Embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
Beitar youth gathered outside the embassy as the two-minute siren, which is used by Israelis to reflect on the Holocaust and its relevance to their lives, sounded. After the siren, the youth held a ceremony in memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust.
Sarah Ha’etzni Cohen, educational director of World Beitar, explained in a conversation with Arutz Sheva that the purpose of the ceremony outside the embassy is to remind everyone that there were people behind the Nazi killing machine.
“We wish to remember not just the victims but also who murdered them,” she said. “Behind the murders there were people and we should remember this. We come here every year to remind people, in Israel and around the world, that there were people behind this murdering machine.”
The Beitar movement has also long been a supporter of a boycott of Germany and its products. As part of this boycott, Beitar encourages avoiding buying products made in Germany and also refrains from sending delegations to the concentration camps.
Beitar has noted that the boycott is done simply as a way to remember that what took place in Europe during World War II was, in fact, genocide of the Jewish people.
“We do this as a memorial to the Jewish people, to remind ourselves that genocide has occurred and, in fact, still occurs in the world,” the movement said. “Jewish people have a short memory so it is important to persist with the boycott and hold the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony outside the German Embassy.”