Els de Groot en Heiner Holtappels - The Startled Space

Bezuidenhout, The Hague

The March 3, 1945-1995 foundation, an initiative of the Residents of Bezuidenhout, asked Els de Groot, whose studio is in this neighborhood, to collaborate on an art project commemorating the English bombardment 50 years earlier. Together with Heiner Holtappels, she developed the art listening project, that tries to evoke something of the violence and inconceivability of this disaster through the stories, feelings and memories of eye witnesses.

During the English bombardment that accidently reduced half of the Bezuidenhout neighborhood to ruins, 511 people were killed and 344 wounded. Fragments from interviews with 25 eyewitnesses together give an impression of what happened on March 3, 1945 at 9 o'clock in the morning.