JERUSALEM (AP) – It's a huge question for observant Jews: How can one still believe in a merciful God after suffering through the worst genocide in history?

As the world marks Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, members of Israel's most devout group will remember the victims with prayer, study of scripture and a deep conviction in a grand plan that is beyond their earthly comprehension.

Many notable survivors, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, have famously questioned where God was during the Holocaust. But survivors from the insular ultra-Orthodox community say they felt a divine presence even in the worst places imaginable.

After years of silence, a small group of pious elderly survivors have begun meeting in a weekly support group at a senior center in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, sharing their thoughts on how they reconcile with a Lord that allowed the destruction of their homes, their families and 6 million of their people.

``We stayed alive. We survived. How could this have happened without the almighty?'' said Alex Seidenfeld, an 82-year-old survivor from Hungary, who said he saw ``miracles'' unfold daily in Nazi concentration camps. ``The almighty knows what he is doing. He has a plan that we sometimes don't understand.''

The ultra-Orthodox support group is the first of its kind, and members say their community's public silence on the Holocaust has been misunderstood. In the eyes of most secular Israelis, the ultra-Orthodox have, at best, a cavalier approach to the Holocaust.

When Israel holds its own Holocaust commemorations each spring, the ultra-Orthodox do not participate. They ignore the two-minute air raid siren that brings the country to a standstill, calling it a foreign ritual unfit for Jews. They shun the somber songs and speeches of official ceremonies and reject the Israeli ethos of a Zionist state rising out the ashes of the Holocaust.

This has fueled anger toward the ultra-Orthodox from mainstream Israelis, who resent the closed community for avoiding military service, imposing religious restrictions on others and for collecting government subsidies to study in seminaries rather than entering the work force.

There have been street clashes, during which extremists in the ultra- Orthodox community have further antagonized other Israelis by calling policemen and journalists Nazis.