Lorentzen’s tunnel of escape opens in the former prison “Fængslet” in Horsens
On the night before Christmas Eve 1949, the master thief Carl August Lorentzen escaped from the prison in Horsens by means of an 18-meter-long tunnel. His legendary tunnel has now been reconstructed and opens on 20th May at 10.30 pm at “Fængslet”.
You cannot spot it when you stand in the court of the prison-turned-museum “Fængslet”. But that’s of course the point of a tunnel dug for escape. It’s to be found underground, just as it’s supposed to be. Once the tunnel is opened on 20th of May, it will function as the new exit of the popular museum “Fængslet”. In this way, you will be able to use the same way out as Carl August Lorentzen almost 70 years ago. However, fortunately, you are not expected to make the same acrobatic manoeuvres as him. You can walk upright through the spacious tunnel and observe how Lorentzen’s silhouette works itself towards the potato cellar of the prison’s superintendent. Towards freedom.
“We don’t want to glorify a criminal who ran away”, assures the museum’s curator Anne Bjerrekaer who is already looking forward to offering the visitors a whole new experience. “We tell the story of a man who - just like many other prisoners, even in today’s prisons – dreams about escaping. Sometimes, the dreams and the desperation grow to be so big, that people are willing to risk their lives. Just like Lorentzen.”
Carl August Lorentzen was a criminal who was up to every trick and partial to breaking into the wealthy’s houses to steal valuable objects. Behind the small closet in his cell, he broke a hole into the wall and dug a tunnel under the prison’s court leading towards the superintendent’s potato cellar. From here, he could walk directly into the open. He left a handwritten note to the prison’s personnel: “Where there’s a will, there’s also a way!”
This quotation is known colloquially, but at “Fængslet” it has become a motto. It’s no coincidence that the reconstructed tunnel opens exactly five years after the museum’s official opening.
“For the time being, this is the climax of the last years’ intense work on developing an extraordinary and relevant museum of international standard”, states Fængslet’s chairman Henning Nørbæk. “The reconstruction of Lorentzen’s tunnel proves that the museum can justifiably be seen as a main attraction in Horsens – which is something that has been demanded by the tourism industry for many years.”
The tunnel opens on 20th May for the public. The exhibition is supported by the Nordea-Foundation, the Horsens municipality and the European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017.
In the wake of the escape
It took Lorentzen almost a whole year to plan the escape and dig a tunnel from his cell to the cellar. After only seven days in the open, he was caught and arrested on a farm south of Horsens and taken back to the prison where he had to spend two months in a punishment cell.
