Female Execution in Slovakia

Description

Die schreckliche Mordthat, die in Zombor geschehen ist [The terrible murder that occured in Zombor]. Vienna: Printed by Joh. N. Friedrich, 1848. Broadside folded into 4 pages. The word [”Murder”] in 1 ½ inch type. In German.

With a lovely illustration of the murderer and her two children (one of which she is strangling, the other she is grabbing by the foot).

Good; fold marks, small tears, very fragile paper and some soiling. Text and images crisp.

This scarce folded broadside tells a disturbing story of a young woman in Zombor, Slovakia (today a village of 147 people near the Hungarian border). When her husband left town, she had an affair with the butcher. Because she fell in love with the butcher, she decided to kill her husband. When he came home, she chopped his head off with a meat-cleaver. His head she placed in the wood stove and his body she buried outside the city limits. The butcher, racked with guilt, went to the city judge, and explained the situation. The local judiciary searched the woman’s home and found the severed head in the wood stove. After the woman was arrested, she asked to see her children. They were brought to her, and the youngest – a 3-month-old baby – she strangled to death. Consequently, the young lady was executed.

Extremely rare. We were only able to locate one other copy worldwide, at the Austrian National Library. No other copies for sale.