City a Tableau for 2 Minutes : Tel Aviv in Silent Tribute to Victims of Holocaust

TEL AVIV —  Rush-hour traffic froze and people halted in mid-stride, heads bowed, at the wail of sirens signaling a two-minute silent tribute today to the 6 million victims of the Nazi Holocaust.

Prominent Israelis, angered at President Reagan’s plans to visit a West German cemetery in May where some members of Hitler’s SS storm troopers are buried, declared that the Holocaust must not be forgotten.

Traffic in Israel’s cities resembled a tableau at 8 a.m. as drivers halted in the middle of the street, getting out of their cars to stand at attention at the whine of the sirens. Pedestrians bowed their heads.

“We say today to those who took part in the defeat of the Nazi beast that it is their duty too to remember and to remind, to educate and to make sure that this monstrous occurrence never happens again,” said Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir at a commemorative Tel Aviv rally Wednesday night.

Although Shamir did not name Reagan, aides said the remark was an indirect criticism of Reagan.

Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, in a rare interview today on Israel Army Radio, said: “There is an attempt--and even the word satanic cannot describe its evilness--to deny that 6 million Jews, men, women and children, were led by Nazi Germany and its partners to the pits, to the poison-spewing trucks, to the gas chambers, to the crematories.

“We shall not forget and we shall not let them forget.”