Nakharar Posted March 30, 2004 Report Share Posted March 30, 2004 Unearthing Hungary husband murders By Jim Fish BBC World Affairs correspondent, Nagyrev, Hungary A two-hour drive south-east of Budapest, the village of Nagyrev is like countless others dotted across the Danubian plain. Modest single-storey homes line its few muddy streets. But beneath its pastoral exterior, Nagyrev nurses a dark secret. Nearly a century ago, with World War I raging, the womenfolk here began to poison their husbands. Now aged 83, Maria Gunya was a little girl when her father, a local official, was asked by the police to help investigate a series of unexplained deaths in the village. It turned out that the woman behind many of the deaths was the village midwife, Zsuzsanna Fazekas. At that time, under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, there was no resident doctor or health service. http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39963000/jpg/_39963445_1women203.jpg Twenty six women from the village were put on trial The midwife enjoyed a monopoly of basic medical training. "The women used to come to Mrs Fazekas with their problems," Mrs Gunya recalls. She said that when they complained about their drunken or violent husbands, Mrs Fazekas told them: "If there's a problem with him, I have a simple solution". That solution was arsenic, distilled by the midwife by soaking flypaper in water. 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. Trials Mrs Fazekas lived in a typical single-storey house in the village, with a view from her covered porch down the full length of the street. It was here that she developed her murderous skills into a cottage industry of death. She saw the police coming. Maria Gunya takes up the story: "When she saw the gendarmes approaching, she realised that it was all over for her. By the time they reached the house, she was already dead - she took some of her own poison." But the midwife was far from the only culprit. At the nearby county seat of Szolnok, from 1929 onwards, 26 women stood trial. Eight received the death sentence, the rest went to prison, seven of them for life. Few admitted guilt, and their motives were never fully explained. Ultimately, the woman who had held the power of life and death over the village could not bear to give it up to anyone. http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39963000/jpg/_39963447_1documents203.jpg Archives survive of the court records from the women's trials At the town archives, Doctor Geza Cseh has become used to pulling out the dusty court records of the trial for visitors to pore over. "I'm sure there are still secrets to be unearthed, here or elsewhere," he said. There are hundreds of yellowing pages, all painstakingly transcribed by hand, and some remarkable fading photos of the accused women, staring impassively at the camera. As for their motives, theories abound. Poverty, greed and boredom are just a few. Some reports say that the women had taken lovers from among the Russian prisoners of war drafted in to work the farms in the absence of their menfolk at the front. When the husbands returned, the women resented their sudden loss of freedom, and, one by one, decided to act. In the 1950s, historian Ferenc Gyorgyev met an old villager while in prison under the communists. The peasant claimed that the women of Nagyrev "had been murdering their menfolk since time immemorial". http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39963000/jpg/_39963451_1memorial203.jpg The killings are remembered but women do not bear the stigma Victims Perhaps they were not the only ones. In the nearby town of Tiszakurt, other exhumed bodies were found to contain arsenic, but no-one was convicted of their deaths. The total death toll in the area may, according to some estimates, have been as high as 300. The years have erased most of the painful memories from Nagyrev. Its name no longer strikes fear among the men of the surrounding region. And Maria Gunya points out wryly that after the poisonings the men's behaviour to their wives "improved markedly". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-=VAHE=- Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 Proof that women are evil. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyebruin Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 NO!! proof that women CAN do evil too!! just like men!! evil is pervasive and can strike anyone who falls into its traps! male/female young/old ...etc.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allarmeniangirl Posted April 4, 2004 Report Share Posted April 4, 2004 Proof that women are evil. Well, you came out of a woman, so you are evil too. Hush up now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-=VAHE=- Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 (edited) I don't want say anything disgusting to you nice girls but through whom did I get to the women ? lol Edited April 5, 2004 by Vahe G. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allarmeniangirl Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 I don't want say anything disgusting to you nice girls but through whom did I get to the women ? lol I don't understand your question and maybe it's good that I don't understand it since you say it's disgusting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyebruin Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 girl i like your attitude! sharp and witty! fyi i don't get what he said either!?!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-=VAHE=- Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 Well, you came out of a woman tie this part to my post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gurgen Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 I think what he's trying to say is that it was the man who made sure he came in the woman in the first place...aahh never mind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allarmeniangirl Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 lol, Bruin. Thanks and glad I wasn't alone. I guess I didn't understand it because I don't speak the male language. But it's OK. No worries. :-) Oooooh, I get it now.....................You guys are sick. Why did you have to go THAT far? Far as in through you dirty mind. Couldn't find a clean way to say it? Sheesh. Incase you guys say that this is mean, here's a hug ~> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gevo27 Posted April 5, 2004 Report Share Posted April 5, 2004 lol, Bruin. Thanks and glad I wasn't alone. I guess I didn't understand it because I don't speak the male language. But it's OK. No worries. :-) Oooooh, I get it now.....................You guys are sick. Why did you have to go THAT far? Far as in through you dirty mind. Couldn't find a clean way to say it? Sheesh. Incase you guys say that this is mean, here's a hug ~> well i not into this conversation, but ill selfishly attend the group hug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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