Composer Georg Friedrich Haas, who’s 11.000 Saiten is featured this Holland Festival, will talk about his autobiography Durch vergiftete Zeiten: Memoiren eines Nazibuben, which recounts his complex family history and its ties with national socialism. The central question in this programme is how he freed himself from his family’s Nazi ideology, what the role of art is to find liberty and how to deal with generational trauma. He is joined in conversation by artists and documentary makers Eline Jongsma and Kel O’Neill who created the artwork His name is my name that deals with this subject.
Haas‘ memoirs constitute a rare and important historical document that recounts a complex Austrian family history in the context of post-WW II national socialism, and Haas’ determined struggle against Nazi ideology in particular. With great precision, emotional strength and lucid social analysis, Haas offers a detailed look at a community influenced by German nationalism and national socialism. Haas describes how his break was also a way out from the toxic environment which also deeply influenced his work as a composer.