JERUSALEM, April 11 (UPI) -- Observances will mark Holocaust Remembrance Day Monday, while the Israeli government is considering financial aid to survivors, officials say.
Thousands of Israeli Holocaust survivors who live below the poverty line will have their electrical costs subsidized under a program of the country's Infrastructure Ministry, The Jerusalem Post reported.
"We are talking about an important humanitarian step," Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "The government has a responsibility to assist Holocaust survivors and make all efforts to prevent to take care of them properly. Their advanced ages means that we need to act on this as quickly as possible."
This is the latest step by the government to improve the living conditions of survivors, he added.
Last week, Israel's Welfare Ministry announced subsidies of up to 90 percent on essential health treatment and medical supplies for Holocaust survivors, the Post reported.
Marking Remembrance Day in Poland, the annual "March of the Living" from Auschwitz to Birkenau will be held as planned, while the country mourns the death of Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash Saturday.
"In a year in which anti-Semitism in the enlightened world has escalated and our international standing has become unstable," March chairman Dr. Shmuel Rosenman said, "the March of the Living is to me the most meaningful response."
