Hans Gál

[1890-1987]

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"Hans Gál was an Austrian composer who had enjoyed great professional success prior to 1933. When the Nazis came to power, Gál was serving as director of the Mainz Conservatory.  Because he was Jewish, he was dismissed from his post and his work was banned from both performance and publication.  He returned to Austria, finally immigrating to Britain shortly after the Nazi Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in 1938.  

Gál had just begun to reestablish himself as a composer in Edinburgh when he was abruptly interned. The Gál family had chosen to settle in Britain, voluntarily allowing their US visa to expire; this internment, carried out as it was by a country they trusted and had come to love, was a major psychological blow."​​​​​

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-excerpt from "Music in British Internment Camps" by Suzanne Snizek, ORT Music and the Holocaust websiste

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For more information, please visit: https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/resistance-and-exile/hans-gal/​