There was a lot of physical abuse and sexual abuse. It was all chalked up to God - like God was directing them to do it, that they were preparing me for later in life. They would pull Bible verses and say, 'See, this is why it's okay.'
Haas is the son and grandson of Nazis, and all his music grows out of the survival instinct born from what he describes in his memoir as the inherited horror of a childhood marked by physical and sexual abuse. My parents were criminals, he says calmly. I reached that conclusion after a long process of coming to terms with it, shaped by shame and fear. I could not speak about this in words, but I could speak about this in music.
Did you deserve that hurt at 10 years old? Absolutely the hell not. But here's the thing: Who's to say that the tough times can't serve as lessons, teaching us what not to repeat? Now that we're grown, it is up to us to decide what kind of parents we want to be for our own children - and for many, that means grabbing generational cycles by the throat and shoving them straight into the trash can.
