Ernst Walsken im Atelier 1984
© Andreas Schäfer

Waiting for Freedom

Tracing the life and work of the painter Ernst Walsken

Freedom is a dream. The camp is a nightmare. Ernst Walsken, the Solingen resistance fighter and painter, is the protagonist of the play „Waiting for Freedom“, which is based on his memoirs of imprisonment by the Nazis of the same name.

Ernst Walsken was born in 1909 as the son of a knife assembler. Following pressure from his father, he learnt the trades of knife assembler and house painter. He began painting and drawing while still at technical school. Encouraged by his friend Johann August Preusse, a master student of Paul Klee, he applied to and enrolled at the Düsseldorf Art Academy in 1932. Among others, Ernst Walsken studied there under Heinrich Nauen until he was expelled from the academy after the summer semester of 1934 for political reasons. He belonged to an independent resistance group in the Rhine-Ruhr area and was arrested in Solingen in November 1935, on the basis of a statement made by a friend from the Lower Rhine, probably under torture. He belonged to one of the first groups of transports that were taken to the reopened Esterwegen concentration camp in 1937.

He later found powerful words to describe the pictures he had drawn, painted and sketched in the camps until 1939. In „Waiting for Freedom“, music, theatre, projections and light merge into the dream of a peat soldier: „He sometimes believed that he had experienced this time in a dream and created all these images in a dream, in a dream.“

Duration approx. 70 minutes

A play by Claudia Gahrke based on „Waiting for Freedom“ by Ernst Walsken

Ernst Walsken: Mark Weigel

The Time: Claudia Gahrke

Vision in the dream: Suzan Köcher

Narrator: Bodo Primus

Music: Herbert A. Mitschke

Projections: Britta Pätzold and Jens Vetter, costumes: Ulrike Mitschke, set: Nici Ventker, make-up: Tanja Fladrich

Dramaturgical assistance: Sandra Evertz

Stage direction: Nicole Leu

Stage, lighting concept: Michael Reitz & Andreas Schäfer

Director: Andreas Schäfer

Image rights: Aktionskomitee für ein Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum Emslandlager e. V.

Within the framework of the 650th anniversary celebrations of the City of Solingen

World premiere: Saturday, 26 October 2024 at 7.30 pm, at the Solingen Theatre

School performance: Monday, 28 October 2024 at 11.00 a.m., at the Solingen Theatre

Theater und Konzerthaus Solingen, Konrad-Adenauer-Str. 71, 42651 Solingen

Admission: €13.00 | €5.00 for pupils in a school group

Advance ticket sales for subscribers and Theatre Card holders begin on 19 August 2024, general ticket sales on 26 August 2024

Theatre and concert box office

Phone: +49 (0)212 204820

Email: theaterkasse@solingen.de

www.theater-solingen.de

Supported by codecentric AG

In Cooperation with Center for Persecuted Arts, Max-Leven-Zentrum Solingen e. V., Solinger Kunstverein e. V. and Aktionskomitee für ein Dokumentations- und Informationszentrum (DIZ) Emslandlager e. V., Papenburg

Supported by the Regional Cultural Fund of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland