Holocaust Remembrance Day begins at 8 P.M. Wednesday night at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, in the presence of President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The central theme of this year´s commemoration is "My Brother´s Keeper - Jewish Solidarity During the Holocaust."

Six survivors of the Holocaust will light the torches representing the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.

Batsheva Dagan, born in Lodz, pretended to be Aryan and worked as a housemaid for a Nazi family until she was turned in. She survived six prisons, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Death March. Dagan is a child psychologist who focuses on educating young children about the Holocaust.

Eliezer Lev-Zion helped rescue 36 children while working with the Jewish resistance in France. He worked as a Jewish National Fund forester and managed immigrant absorption centers in southern Israel.

Anatoly Rubin, was born in Minsk, escaped the Nazis but served six years in Soviet labor camps for trumped-up crimes that included conspiring to kill Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. He was a Prisoner of Zion until he immigrated to Israel in 1969.

Chasia Vardi was born in Poland, fled with her family into the forests and escaped after others she was with were lined up at the edge of a pit and shot by Nazi soldiers. She hid in an attic and in the forests, and survived with the help of a Pole later named as a Righteous Gentile. Vardi went on to help found Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak.

Artemis Miron, born in Greece, survived Auschwitz and the Death March. She is a tour guide.

Yehuda Widawski, a survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz, has been involved since 1978 in restoring the Lodz Jewish cemetery.

Yad Vashem is continuing its Gathering the Fragments national campaign, launched last year in order to collect documents, diaries, photographs, artwork and other privately-held artifacts from the Holocaust era so they can be documented and preserved for future generations. (© Copyright 2012 Ha´aretz 04/18/12)