Israel began its Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day events Wednesday night as similar events continue through Friday in the United States.

The story of where fate brought me in 1963 at the age of 16 when I was in high school. As an average Soviet schoolboy, I was far from Judaism in all its aspects. Jewish history changed everything.

Holocaust survivor Arie Durst lights a torch during the opening ceremony of the Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem on Wednesday, . An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem,