Israelis across the nation paused in memory of the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust, as a siren sounded throughout Israel on Thursday morning. The central ceremony commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day began Wednesday night at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, in the presence of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Six survivors of the Holocaust lit the torches representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Netanyahu went on to say that today's generation "faces calls to exterminate the Jewish State," and that lessons of the past must not be forgotten. He focused on Iran, calling it an existential threat to Israel, and to world peace.