Business of Tiszaeszlár

In 1882 - 1883, Juifs marked and is wrongly considered to be for a ritual crime with Tiszaeszlár in Hungary, involving in the country a violent agitation anti-semite.

Origin of the charge

April 1st 1882, Eszter Solymosi, a country young person Christian 14 years, employed as maidservant at András Huri in Tiszaeszlár, a Village Hungarian located on the Rivière the Tisza, is sent to make races. It will never return.

After unfruitful research, a Rumeur circulates that the young person girl was Victime Fanatisme religious Jew. Géza Ónody, representative of Tiszaeszlár to the Parliament Hungarian and Győző Istóczy, a member of Parliament who will found the " thereafter; Party Anti-semite " , ask the House of Commons, the expulsion of the Jews of Hungary. Agitators excite the people against the Jewish inhabitants thus causing many acts of violence and pogroms. They spread the charge which the Jews killed the young girl in order to recover her Sang for the preparation of the Unleavened bread with the approach of the Passover Juive which begins the April 4th.

The May 4th 1882, the mother of the girl shows in front of the local Juge the Jews to have killed his daughter and presses it to carry out an investigation.

" Confessions" Scharf children

The May 19th, the Tribunal of the county of Nyíregyháza sends the law officer József Bary like Examining magistrate to Tiszaeszlár.

After having placed the Jews suspectés under police Monitoring , Bary starts with to question Sámuel, the five years old son of József Scharf, the verger of the Synagog. After persuadehaving persuaded it with some small coins of Currency and the candies, some women succeed in obtaining from him that he recognizes that his/her father had made come Eszter in his Maison, and that the " shohet" (the ritual cutter) the head had crossed to him. According to the Account of the Child transcribed by Bary, the cutter had, in the presence of his father and other men, makes an incision in the Cou of the girl, while him and his/her Móric brother had received blood in a cut.

His/her father, his Móric brother, who has nearly 14 years as all the other suspectées people deny any implication in the Disparition of the girl and her Assassinat supposed. May 19th, 1882, Scharf and his wife are stopped.

Móric repeats its deposition and adds that it had not been informed of the disappearance of the girl, even by hearsay. In the evening, it is given to Recsky, the Commissaire charged with the Sécurité, which takes it along in its villa to Nagyfalu, where the Greffier, Péczely, receives like official instruction to take care of the safety of the boy. Actually, it seems that Péczely, a giant who spent 12 years in Prison for murder, received like true instruction of Recsky to make of Móric the instrument of a traditional charge of ritual crime.

As the transcribed denunciations of a five year old child do not have any value before a court, it is important to make " craquer" his/her brother. Intimidated, badgered, abused, Móric end up confessing that after the office of the Saturday morning, his/her father had made Eszter in his house under the pretext of has just asked him to withdraw some candles (an act prohibited to the pious Jews Chabbat); that a Jewish Beggar, Hermann Wollner, who cabin on their premises had led the girl in the hall of the synagog and had attacked it; and that after having undressed it, two cutters, Ábrahám Buxbaum and Leopold Braun, had maintained it, while an other cutter Salamon Schwarz, had incised his neck with large a Couteau and had emptied his blood in a cut. These three men, candidates at the vacant post of tutor and shohet, had arrived at Tiszaeszlár for officer in this shabbat particular and according to the child had remained in the synagog after the office of the morning. According to its confession, Móric would have observed all the scene, while épiant by the hole of Serrure of the door of the synagog. During the 45 minutes during which it would have looked at, it would have as seen as after having bled the young girl, Sámuel Lustig, Ábrahám Braun, Lázár Weisstein, and Adolf Jünger would have put to him a Foulard around the neck and will have repaired it.

The two conspirators, Recsky and Péczely immediately call the Bary examining magistrate, in front of which the same night, Móric starts again its account, adding that after the departure of the cutters, it had closed the synagog with key.

But in spite of the meticulous excavations organized by Bary, no body neither no trace of blood is found in the synagog, neither in the houses of the suspectés Jews, nor among the tombs of the Jewish cemetery. However twelve Jews are stopped in suspicion and the young person Móric Scharf and given to the geôlier.

The June 18th, a body is withdrawn from the Yisza river close to the village of Hobby-horse. The medical examiner declares that the body is that of an young girl of approximately 14 years and much of witnesses in spite of the state of advanced Décomposition recognize the young person Eszter Solymosi. His/her mother categorically refuses to recognize the body of her daughter, but then identifies the clothes worn by the dead as being those of her daughter. A committee of experts made up of two doctors and a surgeon declares that the body is that of a girl from 18 to 20 years which drowned eight to ten days before. The body is buried with the catholic cemetery of Tiszaeszlár.

The agitators anti-semites, with among them the catholic priest of the city, insinuate that the body was " trafiqué" by the Jews and equipped with the clothes with Eszter Solymosi in order to dissimulate the crime of ritual murder. The craftsmen who found the body are led under the threat to withdraw their first deposition and to declare that they put themselves the body in the river after a Jewish unknown factor had required of them to dress the dead with the clothes which it had brought

New arrests are operated, and the business becomes now a national cause.

Formal charges

The July 29th of the formal charges are carried against the 15 following people: Salamon Schwarz, Ábrahám Buxbaum, Leopold Braun, and Hermann Wollner for murder. József Scharf, Adolf Jünger, Ábrahám Braun, Sámuel Lustig, Lázár Weisstein, and Emánuel Taub for voluntary assistance to a crime; Anselm Vogel, Jankel Smilovics, David Hersko, Martin Large, and Ignác Klein for complicity of crime and dissimulation of body. The time taken for the business is mainly due to the arbitrary and illegal acts found of Bary which led the interrogations only without the assistance of a prosecutor, wrote the official reports without witness and has tortured the defendants and the suspects.

By order of the Government, the young person Móric Scharf is placed under the control of the Bailiff of the district which places it in preventive detention in the Henter guard. He is to him interdict to communicate with the other accused and the other Jews. He is thus entirely under the influence of their adversaries and receives instructions for the Témoignage which he must make at the time of the Procès.

The defendants are defended by Károly Eötvös, a Journaliste and member of the House of Commons, associated with the lawyers B. Friedmann, Sándor Funták, max Székely of Budapest, and Ignác Heumann de Nyíregyháza, the seat of the Magistrates' court where the business is judged.

In a request addressed to the Minister for Justice Pauler, Eötvös protests against the tortures practiced by Bary, Recsky, and Péczely, but its protest does not produce any effect. The business too having trailed in length, the prosecutor of the King in Budapest, Kozma, goes to Nyíregyháza in September to accelerate the instruction.

Protest of Lajos Kossuth

The slowness of the instruction draws the general attention. The country is seriously agitated. A great number of lampoons pokes passions of the people and try to establish the culpability of the defendants.

Lajos Kossuth, which lives then in exile with Turin, makes intend its powerful voice then to criticize the action of the authorities severely and to disapprove this flashover of prejudices anti-Jews. He considers that the suspicion of ritual crime is a dishonor for Hungary; to represent murder, such an abominable it, is made by an individual, like a ritual crime or a racial crime, is not worthy of a modern Civilization. This cry of indignation of a patriotic veteran contrasts curiously with the fury of persecution and prejudices which makes rage through the country and which is reflected with the House of Commons.

The Public prosecutor Havas goes then to Nyíregyháza, and notes that in spite of the official declaration of the examining magistrate, the defendants were never heard. It slackens some prisoners, but realizing that its work to accelerate the business is blocked by influential people, it offers its Démission which is promptly accepted

Exhumation of the body of Eszter

Towards the mid- November, the woman of József Scharf is released, while her husband and the other prisoners remain held.

The December 7th, at the request of defense counsels, the body found in the Tisza is exhumed and re-examined by three professors of medicine of the Université of Budapest: Schenthauer, Belky, and Mihalkovics. They find that the opinion stated by the members of the preceding committee is based on no scientific basis and later at the time of the lawsuit, they will tax them with serious ignorance. The body is in too advanced state of decomposition to allow a categorical judgment. The fact that the body was never claimed leaves only little doubt in their opinion that it is well that of Eszter Solymosi. Moreover, they note that the throat was not distinct and that a ritual crime was not committed

The June 17th 1883, the last act of this disaster business is held before the court of Nyíregyháza. The Juge Ferenc Korniss chairs with Eduard Szeyffert as prosecutor of State. Although the testimony of Móric Scharf is the only base of the charge, the court will hold 30 sessions to examine the business in all its details, and to hear many pilot. Obvious contradictions of the boy, in spite of the instructions which it received, and the falseness of its charges compared to the inspection of the supposed scene of the crime carried out by the court with Tiszaeszlár the July 16th, lead the August 3rd, with the unanimous payment of the defendants

Szalay, the lawyer of the Solymosi widow, in a speech full with hideous invectives, made call of the decision, but the Supreme court rejects the call and confirms the Verdict magistrates' court

The young indicter which had been conditioned to disavow its faith and its parents, turns over in his/her parents who accommodate it joyeusement

Payment of the defendants

The verdict of not guilty and the release of the prisoners, who for the majority had languished 15 month in prison, are the signal of Soulèvement S with Presbourg (Bratislava), Budapest, and in other towns of Hungary. The spectators who pressed themselves in the court during the sessions, act scandalously to the advertisement of the verdict, in insulting the prisoners, threatening the witnesses and the defense counsels and while vociferating of the cries of hatred. Among them, and far from being the least active, Onody, the representative of Tiszaeszlár to the House of Commons.

See too

Leo Frank
Business Beilis
Business Hilsner
Business Dreyfus
History of the Jews in Hungary
Anti-semitism
Charge of ritual crime against the Jews

References

in : JewishEncyclopedia
of : Bibliography: Al. Zeit. of Jud. 1882-83, 1884, p. 248;
of : Die Neuzeit, 1882-83;
of : Der Blutprozess von the Tisza-Eszlar, New York, 1883;
of : Paul Nathan, Der Prozess von the Tisza-Eszlar, Berlin, 1892.S.S. Man.
hu : Eötvös Károly: At nagy per, Budapest, 1904.
hu : Krúdy Gyula: With tiszaeszlári Solymosi Eszter, Budapest, 1975. (2nd ED.)

Random links: