The characters

Miss Wallies never leaves the house without her old white pram. Packed with the ladder and binoculars she’s been watching out at the old mine for days.  What for? She is waiting for the arrival of the angels!
For today on this 9th of January at the grand opening of the European Cultural Capital 2010 in Essen they are going to show up. Right here on the ‘black edge’ of the Zollverein-Mine. Miss Wallies knows them well, the winged ones, who used to work here in the mines of the Ruhr-Area when they were human. She knows their fates and their stories, above ground and under ground over the last hundred years.
She knows of the importance that the coal had for the people here and still does for her angels. She has been searching for years for one particular angel – the one that should be lying in her pram….
Miss Wallies has been taking notes in her little black diary and has given names to the angels: Schwarzwasch (blackwash), Hungerkummer (hunger-sorrow) or Streikbereit (strike-ready).
Hungerkummer is the angel with the big loaf of bread in his hands, who keeps eating and eating all day. It used to be different. He was one of the many people who were taken from their homes in the east during the 2nd World War to work as forced labourers and mine coal under ground for the enemy. He was in bad shape indeed, just skin and bones. A few slices of bread, a tad of margarine and fake coffee. Horses had better food. No days for rest and the black death in the barracks. Bad days. He is a shy angel. Why does he return to the site of his torment? So that we do not forget what happened then.
The Immersorge angel (always-worry) with the beautiful wave in the wings. They cover it like a blanket. With a big white handkerchief, always shaking its head in fear.
 
She does not trust these huge industrial installations with nice sounding names like “cradle-tower” and “sun-wheel” that cover up the sleeping monster in the deep. Once she was coming to meet her man after his shift when a fellow pitman and said that there had been an accident and that her man was locked under ground. She almost fainted then. They were going to be married in two weeks and she was already carrying his child in her womb. When he suddenly appeared at the gate she fell into his arms. Afterwards she was always worried sick when he was even ten minutes late and would run to the mine to look for him. It never changed as long as he was working under ground. Always worry.
Miss Wallies has found two women angels as well. One wears an apron and is carrying a huge load of laundry. Miss Wallies knew that her favourite angel Schwarzwasch would be turning up here at the black edge. She used to be a mom, always battling with the coal dust. Doing laundry each Saturday. Before it had dried the coal had already put its veil over it. She would have given anything for the ability to wash the dust out of the lungs of her children.
The angel Streikbereit can be easily spotted because of his big wings. He’s the biggest of them all says Miss Wallies. He is one of the courageous ones of the year of 1889. That was when, for the first time in history, 100.000 miners went on strike in the German Reich in order to improve their working conditions and get fair wages. 90% of all pitmen of the Ruhr-Area took part in this action. Together these workers fought for rights that we all take for granted today. One for all, all for one.
  
Mr. Zwiebler is an old acquaintance of Miss Wallies and is joining her on this day for the angel search at the Zollverein. With his weird funnel apparatus he climbs up his ladder to catch the voices of the angels. What do they have to tell us? We better pay very good attention, and not just with our ears, but with our eyes as well…
Heilhilf (healer-helper). He was already an angel to the people when he was working at the mine. He was the nurse and would help the sick and the injured. Always there when needed, day and night with his little first aid bag of tools. No one knew the miners better with their ailments, their worries, their cares and their stories.
Flügelfreund (wing-friend) is one of the elder angels and Miss Wallies likes to poke fun at him – an angel with birds in cage…. Since he first got to the mine in the olden days he pampers his canaries. He started out with 21 of them, until the first one died in March 1906. Patiently, but not without fear they went down under ground with the pitmen, who would fasten the little cages on the ceilings of the shafts. If the oxygen content of the air went down the birds got restless. For the miners this was the sign to stop work at once and relocate. Sometimes the air got so thin that the canary would just drop of its perch. The life of a bird for the mines.
 
Kaiserkoker (coker-king) is the youngest of the angels. No one loves the coke manufacture at the Zollverein more than he. He used to work as a coker at the Kaiserstuhl in Dortmund, but in the year 2000 the “heartbeat of steal” came to a halt. The most modern coke manufacture in the world was shut down after only eight years of production. But the facility was going to be revived. It was bought by the Chinese, who had it taken down and 30.000 tons of steel were shipped to China. Kaiserkoker had to help with the job, reluctantly till the very end. A waste-land of steel. Smile please!
Kofferhoffer (suitcase-hoper). A guest-worker from the south of Italy. The dolce vita in a small suitcase, home and identity. Of course communication with the local miners was challenging, but there was a helpful publication that the miners received from their management containing the golden rules for the treatment of the guest-workers: “the Southerner wants to be treated as a person. He is naturally friendly and appreciates a friendly environment. Small gestures of friendship, like the gift of a cigarette will win his heart in a flash.” The Kofferhoffer is very sociable and loves little presents on account of this he always carries a little basket on a long piece of rope.
Voices of the angels