Four-day memorial for victims of Wisconsin Sikh temple shootings

OAK HILL, Wis., Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Nearly a thousand people gathered in southern Wisconsin to remember the six victims of last year's Sikh temple shooting, officials in Oak Hill, Wis., said.

Two young children who survived the massacre told how they heard what sounded like gunshots and hid with their mother in the temple's basement, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday.

When the shooting stopped and they re-emerged, the children said they were unable to wake their father who had suffered a gunshot through the eye.

Five men and one woman died on Aug. 5, 2012, when white supremacist Wade Michael Page went on a deadly rampage at the temple, fatally shooting six worshippers and wounding six others before turning the gun on himself.

Monday night's candlelight remembrance was the final event in a four-day commemoration of the Sikh Temple massacre.

It began with a memorial service on Friday attended by politicians and religious leaders of many faiths, the Chicago Tribune reported.

U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Gov. Tommy Thompson were among those in attendance.

"We are all Sikhs today, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said.