DAVIS JOINS RALLY FOR NAZIS' VICTIMS; HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCES TO CONTINUE.

Byline: Daily News

California Gov. Gray Davis joined thousands of people who gathered Sunday at the Los Angeles Holocaust Monument in Pan Pacific Park for Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies.

The event to remember those who died in the Nazi Holocaust was marked this year by the events in Kosovo, which have renewed concerns throughout the world over ``ethnic cleansing'' and genocide.

Davis spoke of never forgetting what happened in the Holocaust and how that memory should be on people's minds as events unfold in Kosovo.

Harvard University Professor Daniel Goldhagen, author of the best seller ``Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust'' delivered the keynote address focusing on the commemoration's theme: the 60th anniversary of Hitler's war of genocide.

In a moving part of the ceremony Sunday afternoon, members of the the Zimriyah Chorale sang songs that were written by inmates of various concentration camps, including Dachau, in Germany.

Holocaust Remembrance Day was observed in various Los Angeles-area ceremonies throughout the week, including a vigil held on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Tuesday, by nearly 1,200 schoolchildren at the Los Angeles Holocaust Memorial.

Sunday's gathering was the largest Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Los Angeles.

The unique monument in Pan Pacific Park was designed by artist Joseph Young, featuring 18-foot-high columns of polished black granite on a hexagonal base of Balmoral red granite.

The triangular columns, reminiscent of the crematoriums, provide 18 sides on which appear bronze bas reliefs and inscriptions depicting the Holocaust era.

Atop every column, a ``Flame of Memory'' will burn for 24 hours each year on Holocaust Remembrance Day.