The film was inspired by a documentary by the Dutch film-maker Astrid Bussink who spent four months in the village investigating claims that, after the First World War, an epidemic of poisoning claimed the lives of men who had recently returned to their wives from the trenches. The spouses were the suspected culprits.
'Angel maker' was the name given to the village midwife, Zsuzsanna Fazekas, who supplied the women with arsenic. This was originally a euphemism for her part-time trade of administering abortions but when village women complained about their drunken or violent husbands, Fazekas told them: 'If there's a problem with him, I have a simple solution.'.
Injured soldiers came home to a severe economic depression. It was a hard life. The circumstances were extreme, and feeding another mouth that couldn't contribute anything was too much of a burden on the family.
Over the years, with the village cemetery filling up, police suspicions grew. They started to exhume bodies. Out of 50 bodies examined, 46 contained arsenic. Fingers pointed towards the midwife. Mrs Fazekas cheated retribution by taking some of her own poison but 26 women form the village stood trial. Eight received the death sentence, the rest went to prison, seven of them for life.
Nagyrev women facing trialThe updated, fictionalised version of the story will see the women of a Yorkshire farming community take the place of the Hungarian villagers. They turn murderous when their British husbands return from the trenches to discover their places have been taken by German prisoners of war.
Note I have been advised by a good Hungarian friend that the expression Angel Makers is not appropriate as a description for the murders. It is an expression used in Hungary to describe aborted foetuses.
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BBC report on Nagyrev
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12 comments:
An Agatha Christie whodunit novel comes to life, complete with arsenic! Truth really is stranger than fiction.
Could this story be the impetus behind the classic, "Arsenic And Old Lace" movie?
Oh it usually is. With so many people on the planet the prospect of the weird, the funny or the downright evil is enormous. Pretty much anything you can imagine people doing has or will happen.
Arsenic was a very common poison - it did for Napoleon - I would imagine that Arsenic and Old Lace was inspired by one of many other poisonings.
It's funny that you mentioned Napoleon because my oldest daughter just finished up a short book on his life and his unnatural demise.
I told her that he is the originator behind the psychological phenomena that is, "Short Man Syndrome"!
There seems to be something in it.. Attila the Hun was a shortarse apparently, while Stalin and Charles Manson were hardly tryouts for the basketball team!
Having said that would we view jockeys and female gymnasts as potential tyrants?
The short stature thing only applies to males.
I read a study in a psychology magazine last year that denoted the interesting fact that when presented with a group of men of varying looks, heights, etc. and asked to comment on what kind of person they perceived the man to be based on his appearance, the focus group overwhelmingly selected the tallest as possessing leadership qualities. How weird is that? I don't usually associate the two, but then I read that George Washington(and most of the Founding Fathers) was quite a bit taller than the average man and that likely distinguished him from the crowd.
So, if you're tall, citizens will naturally vote for you. If you're short, you have to use brute force and totalitarianism to meet your objective. Hence, "Short Man Syndrome".
Papi and I see eye to eye. Literally. Likely, the only election he'll win is among a pygmy tribe!
I suppose identifying taller men as leaders does not really surprise me. They are people we look up to, literally! Not tall myself but neither am I short... Perhaps I could be the leader of a medium sized population!
Brave ladies. But was that Tiszazúg or Nagyrév? For me the wymin of Tiszazug are of inspiration....no more filthy stinking socks, no more..... The story is interesting, and there is more to that than poisoning their husbands.
"the tallest as possessing leadership qualities. How weird is that?" Waistband, not weird at all: was supposed to be better equipped genetically, also stronger: as simple I thinké after all, our taste can be reduced to survival.
In many places very tall )just like very short) is seen as weird and not appreciated for example. Unusualy tall-short children often have to suffer in school for instance. In my childhood simply tall was seen as a serious handicap (Hungarians are not tall, my classmates were all ugly little Napoleons. At least they looked like that....)
I remember reading about this case in a true life murder magazine years ago. Were there two cases of mass poisonings Red? Grateful if you could point me in the direction of some reading on the other case.
Yes, it was mass poisoning, I will try to find you a link. And also; how can you expect a satan (i.e. husband0 to become an angel after he is poisoned? Spare the arsenic, spoil him....
So more of the demon makers then Red?
Nah, nah. Demon is too good for a male. Shitmaker?
Read the true account of the story by Bela Bodo, Tiszazug: a Social History of a Murder Epidemic, New York: Eastern European Monograph, Columbia Universtiy Press, 2002.
Only 10 per cent of the victims wer returning (disabled) war veterans. The high majority of victims were elderly and often sick men and women. Please do no tread too much into the story; ths is about peasant society. No pulprits and hereos here, only victims. BWalker
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