Jerusalem ? Hundreds of angry Holocaust survivors, some wearing yellow Stars of David like those the Nazis forced Jews to wear, marched on a sweltering Sunday afternoon to demand an increase in a supplementary stipend that Israel’s government has offered them.

The rare public protest was an embarrassment for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who announced the extra payments, amounting to $20 a month, last week in response to concerns about poverty among the 240,000 survivors who live in Israel. At Sunday’s Cabinet meeting he called the issue “sensitive and painful” because the protesters were invoking images of Nazi atrocities.

With placards and T-shirts reading “the Holocaust is still here” and “Forgive us for surviving,” men and women in their 60s, 70s and 80s, many of them frail, labored through a five-block route from the parliament building to Olmert’s office.

Children, grandchildren and other supporters joined the survivors in their “March of the Living,” which drew at least 2,500 people.