The institutional ceremony for commemorating International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust will take place on Wednesday, 26 January. The traditional Remembrance Ceremony will be held in Plaça de Sant Jaume, from 6 pm on, with members of Jewish communities, Roma organisations, LGBTI organisations, other groups victimised by the Nazis and family members of deported and murdered individuals. The event has been jointly convened and organised by Barcelona City Council and the Catalan government.

It will start with a rendition of the song Arvoles yoran por luvyas, a Ladino piece sung by Sefardi Jews in the Nazis’ extermination camps. This will be immediately followed by the lighting of seven candles in commemoration. Each candle will pay homage to a different collective. The first, to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis; the second, to the Jewish resistance, and the third, to the one and a half million children who fell victim to the Nazi barbarism. Three more candles will be lit in memory of the Roma victims, the Spanish republicans deported to the Nazi camps and all the other groups that suffered persecution. Finally, the seventh candle will commemorate the Righteous among the Nations, the men and women who risked their lives to save persecuted Jews. A performance of “El Malei Rachamim”, a Jewish prayer for the dead, will be given during the candle-lighting ceremony.

The lighting of the candles will be followed by a minute’s silence for the victims of the Holocaust, text readings and a performance of the Roma anthem, Gelem Gelem, and El cant dels ocells, a traditional Catalan song.