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Although it arrived late compared to previous years, thanks to the endless summers of climate change, we are now in the midst of the spooky season: gloomy days, crepuscular atmosphere, the scent of fallen leaves and petrichor in the air, it is undeniable that November, the month of the dead, is here with its festivities and trail of travelling souls.
Between ghosts and ghouls and creatures of the night, today we want to tell you a story of fallen souls that reside on this side of the veil and in the human soul, the undisputed kingdom of evil. A story that talks about witches, death and times gone by.
The story takes place under the skies of Hungary in the early 1900s, a land famous for its rich landscape, the scent of goulash bubbling in sumptuous kitchens, the fertile banks of the Danube and a past full of history and folklore - reminiscences of imperial splendour and ancient shamanic memories. The same heart of Europe that gave birth to the bloodthirsty Countess Erzsébet Báthory, a figure shrouded in history and legend, gave birth to today's protagonist: Zsuzsanna Fazekas.
The story begins in a Hungary on the brink of the collapse of the then Austro-Hungarian empire and far from its glory days: at the front, the First World War would soon claim the souls of more than 500 thousand soldiers while in the villages the women were left to themselves, carrying on, as best they could, their daily lives.
As bleak a prospect as it may have seemed, women soon found their balance in this renewed matriarchal society; at the time, the female condition was not what it is today: often, marriages were arranged by families and young women found themselves having to wed into the harsh reality of a married life without rights, an unwanted dowry of a loveless marriage. Often with numerous dependent children and farming work to carry on, some of them found consolation in the arms of prisoners of war - stationed in a prison camp near the village of Nagyrév, the main stage of our story. While the war raged on the front, a bubble was created in the heart of Hungary of independent, libertine, and sexually free women, who unfortunately found themselves sometimes with unwanted pregnancies.
And here Zsuzsanna, the protagonist of our story, comes into play.
In places like these, suspended in a liminal dimension, villagers relied not so much on the progress of science but rather on centuries-old traditions and popular remedies. In these places, in case of illness, one knocked on the doors of the elderly village healers with their mastery of herbs and knowledge of feminine mysteries.
Zsuzsanna Fazekas was one of these authoritative crones; appeared in Nagyrév in 1911, after the mysterious disappearance of her husband, she established herself as a reference figure thanks to her curriculum as an expert midwife. Like so many of them, she was also a capable abortionist - a technique then illegal and frowned upon as much as it is today but practised out of necessity for as long as anyone can remember. An extremely useful knowledge, in the libertine Nagyrév of those years: it is said that Zsuzsanna had been arrested several times, between 1911 and 1921, for having carried out numerous illegal abortions in the village.
Like many other realities that seem immutable, the Great War also came to an end. The survivors, severely affected by the experiences they lived on the front (today we could say suffering from PTSD) returned to their home village, bringing with them from the front bloody demons whom they were seeking to appease with large quantities of alcohol. As it is easily imaginable, men, often physically and mentally disfigured, struggled to find their place in a post-war society that abandoned them while women, on the other hand, experienced an intoxicating independence during the war years, which they did not want to give up in favour of an often abusive husband who had never been loved and now incapable of providing for the family.
Nowadays a confidant of the women of the village and a wise healer, Zsuzsanna decided to make her knowledge of poison path available to the villagers. Like many other healers, the woman was a dual figure: on the one hand a giver of life, on the other a bringer of death.
Thanks to a mysterious arsenic-based mixture (a faithful and undisputed ally of court intrigues over the centuries), husbands, elderly parents and unwanted children began to drop like flies - literally. The precious poison, in fact, came from none other than the boiling of fly traps. Due to having cholera-like symptoms and being the village rural with often unsanitary water sources, arsenic poisoning seemed like the perfect crime.
It is not very clear how the case became public knowledge: according to some sources, a medical student found alarming levels of arsenic in the river on whose placid banks the village of Nagyrév stood, while according to other sources an anonymous letter was sent to the director of a local newspaper. During the investigation, the police had the bodies exhumed from the village cemetery - which showed traces of arsenic. It is estimated that, over the course of twenty years, around fifty people met the same mysterious fate as Zsuzsanna's husband who died prematurely.
The Fazekas method spread like wildfire in the surrounding areas: some men residing in nearby villages reported attempted cases of poisoning which led to the shocking discovery of this series of crimes, which shook an entire nation and left an indelible mark on Hungarian history. According to some estimates, the victims amounted to up to 300 people in the area alone - but who knows how many other people succumbed to the same fate.
When the police knocked on Zsusanna Fazekas' doors, it was too late - holder of life and death, the midwife would never have allowed herself to be executed like any criminal, she took her own life with her own poison. Starting with Fazekas, the police discovered the other members of the "Angel Makers" group (as they were later known to the rest of the world): 26 women were sentenced to life imprisonment, 8 to capital punishment and the remaining a few years in prison. Was this finally enough to eradicate the evil in Nagyrév? Perhaps.
In the 1950s, historian Aladár Györgyey Ferenc met an old villager during his years of imprisonment under the communist regime; the peasant claimed that Nagyrév's women "had been killing their men since time immemorial."
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But why witches?
Although over the centuries midwifery was considered a position of prestige, during the Middle Ages it became associated with Witchcraft and many women were thus accused and executed over the centuries - guilty many times only of simply being midwives with medical knowledge and experience with natural remedies. And with the knowledge of pharmacopoeia, also comes the knowledge of poisons and the Ars Veneficium, as we know, has always been a precious ally of women in the history of the world - from Lucusta to Giulia Tofana, to court rumours on the controversial figures of Lucrezia Borgia and Catherine de Medici (to remain only in Italy). Zsuzsanna Fazekas was one of the many historical figures who made use of this knowledge.
In Nagyrév, as in many other European countries of the early 20th century, superstitions were deeply rooted in the local culture. The folklore surrounding witchcraft, potions and magic were a powerful influence and the Angel Makers embodied to perfection in the imagination collective the fearsome image of witches.
As much as this story may make you shudder, it is actually a cross-section of female history over the centuries. To fully understand the questionable motivations of Fazekas and her accomplices, we must first remind ourselves of the consequences of social abandonment and gender inequality: while their actions were undeniably criminal, it is vital to examine the systemic issues that drove these women to such extremes.
Nagyrév no longer inspires fear as it did hundred years ago, luckily conditions such as PTSD are now recognised and treatable and nowadays women enjoy freedom that their ancestors could only dream of; the story of the Angel Makers today remains a chilling chapter in Hungarian history, which fascinates both historians and enthusiasts of true crime. Their crimes were born of desperation, abandonment of society and the desire for freedom; by understanding the complex web of circumstances that led to their actions, we gain insight into the darkest corners of human nature and are reminded in a way of how far we have come can push to escape the chains of their existence.
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