Hilsner business

The so known Business Hilsner under the name of the Business of Polna , is a charge of ritual murder against a Juif named Leopold Hisner in Bohemia in 1899 and 1900. This business have at the time a great repercussion and led to a wave of agitations anti-semites.

The murder

Anežka Hrůzová, a catholic young person Czech 19 years, living in Klein Veznic (now: Věžnička), a village located at three kilometers of Polná, and going the every day in this city to work there as dressmaker, leaves her work station the March 29th 1899 in the afternoon, and will never be re-examined alive. Three days later, on April 1st, its body is found in a forest, the torn throat cut and its clothing. Not far, one finds a pool of blood, some mackled stones of blood, part of his clothing and a cord with which she either was strangled, or drawn after its assassination to the place where the body was discovered.

The charge of Leopold Hisner

The suspicions of the police force go first of all on four vagrants who were seen in the vicinity of the forest the afternoon of the day when the murder is supposed to be made. Among them is Leopold Hilsner, Jew a 23 year old, simple of spirit and which was wandering all its life. The suspicions are focused on him, because it was often seen walking in the forest close to the place where the body was found. A searching at his place does not show anything suspect. He affirms to have left wood the afternoon of the crime a long time before the supposed hour of the crime, but he cannot provide any verifiable alibi. Hilsner thus is stopped and judged in Kuttenberg (now: Kutná Hora) of the 12 to the September 16th. He denies any knowledge of the crime. The only object which can be used as proof against him, is pants on which some spots were found, and which according to the testimony of experts chemists could be bloodstains that one would have tried to make disappear by washing the pants. A Peter Peschak, witness for the prosecution, states to have seen Hilsner, at a distance of approximately 600 meters, to have accompanied by two unknown Jews, the day of the murder, at the place where the body was found. Another witness affirms to have seen it leaving wood the afternoon of March 29th and having noticed that it was particularly agitated. The prosecutor, like Karel Baxa, the lawyer of the Hrůza family make clear suggestions of ritual crime. Certain depositions prove that if Hilsner is perhaps implied in the murder, it is in any case too weak to have made it all alone. In spite of that, he is condemned to death, while its supposed accomplices remain unknown and that nothing is then done to seek them.

The " Confession"

On the basis of technical point, Tomáš Masaryk, professor with the University Charles of Prague and future president of the Czechoslovakia, interjette call near the supreme court. This one orders that a new lawsuit proceeds with Písek in order to avoid an intimidation of the jury and that the lawsuit can take place without being influenced by the political agitation.

The September 20th, a few days after the first lawsuit, Hilsner is frightened by its fellows-prisoner who, showing him some carpenters working in the court of the prison, say to him that those are building its gibet. They persuade it to give the names of its accomplices by promising to him that thus its sorrow would be commuted. Hilsner implies then Joshua Erbmann and Solomon Wassermann as those which helped it. Brought in front of the judge the September 29th, he declares that all this is false. The October 7th however, it reiterates its charges, but again the November 20th, it retracts. Fortunately for those which he shows, they are able to provide verifiable alibis, one being even in prison the day of the murder, and the other in an asylum for the poor in Moravie, they could not materially be present this day there at Polná.

Agitation anti-semite

During this time, agitators anti-semites try to assemble the population against the Jews and more particularly against Hilsner. In particular, the newspaper Deutsches Volksblatt of Vienna, sends one to defer special to carry out investigations. The Vaterland , the principal body of the church, reiterates the charges of ritual murder. In several areas, sometimes violent demonstrations take place against the Jews, as in Holleschau (now: Holešov) and with Nachod. A great meeting of protest organized the October 7th by the Jewish community of Vienna as well as a direct call with the Prime Minister do not succeed in calming agitation. The judgment in four months of prison the December 11th of August Schreiber, one of the editors of the Deutsches Volksblatt for slandering towards the Jews makes on the contrary only worsen the tension. Speeches violent one against the Jews are marked the December 12th in Reichsrath and Dr. Baxa, the lawyer of the Hruza family, in a speech in front of the Diet of Bohemia the December 28th shows the government of impartiality in favor of the Jews.

The second lawsuit

Meanwhile, Hilsner is shown of another murder. Marie Klímová, a maidservant, had disappeared the July 17th 1898, and the body of a woman had been found the October 27th in the same forest where one had found the body of Anežka Hrůzová. The body had been identified with a great probability as being that of the young maidservant. The body in state of decomposition being advanced, it had even been impossible to know the cause of the dead one and if a crime had been committed. Hilsner is also judged for this second crime with Písek of the October 25th to the November 14th 1900. The witnesses at the time of this lawsuit are more explicit in their depositions. Those which at the time of the first lawsuit had affirmed to have seen Hilsner in possession of a knife, affirm now that the knife was a knife similar to those used for the ritual slaughters. The foreign Jews that the witnesses had seen in company of Hilsner are this time Ci described with a high degree of accuracy. When one points out with the witnesses whom them testimony appreciably differs from that given at the time of the first lawsuit, they affirm that they were intimidated by the judge or that their testimony had not been correctly consigned.

November 14th, the verdict is pronounced and Hilsner is declared guilty murder of Anežka Hrůzová as well as that of Marie Klímová. He is condemned to the capital punishment, but the sentence is commuted the June 11th 1901, by the emperor in life imprisonment. The sentence is commuted on the basis of imperial grace, although many requests for a new lawsuit are refused. Little time before the end of the First World War, the March 24th 1918, Hilsner is pardoned by the emperor Charles Ier of Austria.

It will pass the remainder of its life to Velké Meziříčí, Prague and Vienna where it dies the January 9th 1928 with old 52 years. It forever been able to be established if Hilsner were or not accessory to the murder of Anežka Hrůzová or if the thesis developed by Masaryk, that the young person Anežka Hrůzová was not killed where the body was discovered and whom she has more than probably be victim of a family quarrel was founded.

See too

References

External bonds

(in) : Information on the Web page of the Jewish Museum of Prague

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