For much of his life the dramatist and educator Harald Hahn was in the dark about his family history. His relatives did not speak about their memories of World War Two. Hahn decided to break the silence and to actively explore his own family background.
On 6 and 7 July 2022 Harald Hahn performed his play »Monologue with my ›Asocial‹ Grandfather« at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp Memorial. The play attracted an incredibly diverse audience. A large number of adults and young people with an interest in the topic attended the evening performance. The next morning a group of secondary school students came to watch the play at the memorial’s education centre.
The monologue is in the form of a conversation between Hahn and his late grandfather, Anton Knödler, who was imprisoned in Buchenwald. It covers the family secret, the sense of shame and life in the concentration camp. Hahn departs from the conversation to take on the role of an SS man and to play himself as a child. In the role of a caretaker from Swabia (southern Germany), Hahn comments on events and in doing so draws links between the history, the actor on stage and the supposedly uninvolved audience. The questions raised intentionally draw in the entire audience. In the process, Hahn uncovers uncomfortable continuities between past and present. What impact do guilt, shame and silence have on families over generations? And how do class and background shape not only remembrance but also our lives in present-day society?
The audience is completely gripped by the performance. The questions in the subsequent discussion are as diverse as the audience. Some recount the silence and stigma in their own families. And also those who are too shy to raise their hands are moved by what they have seen. Young people who have experienced flight themselves, who have already engaged intensively with the culture of remembrance and worked through this on stage, enter into conversation with Harald Hahn and talk about their love of theatre and acting, but also their own experiences of exclusion. Others reflect on the performance more quietly, becoming silent and pensive. The play has made everyone think. It seems that theatre is a medium that brings people together and provides the opportunity to make even complex topics accessible to everyone, irrespective of age or background.
To find out more about the play and its context, click here.
Laura Lopez Mras
| The SS (»Schutzstaffel«) under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler was envisioned as an elite paramilitary organisation of the National Socialist state. With Himmler’s takeover and reorganisation of the police, the SS became the regime’s central instrument of terror. In 1934, it was given control over all concentration camps. The Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), formed in 1939 as the planning centre for crimes in German-occupied Europe, was subordinated to it. |
People were defined as »asocial« and faced persecution if they did not fit into the »national community« (»Volksgemeinschaft«) under Nazism. The groups affected were primarily the unemployed, the homeless, prostitutes or non-conformist youth. They were accused of posing a danger to society. The welfare authorities, justice system and police were among the institutions which worked together to persecute these individuals. They created a dense network of surveillance and compulsory measures.