Földvári Books

Scarce Forensic Documents Related to the Investigation of the Tiszaeszlár Affair

Beilagen zum Thatbestand der Tisza-Eszlárer Criminal-Affaire nach dem dermaligen Stande der Untersuchung. [Bound with:] Die Tisza-Eszlárer Criminal-Affaire nach dem dermaligen Stande der Untersuchung.

[Budapest]: [S.n], [1883?]. First edition. In later buckram. 48 p.; 54 p. [title page and first leaf missing]. Shelfmarks on the spine and title page. Bookplate of Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaCohen Maimon (1875–1962) on inner front panel. Old collection stamps on the title page (recto-verso), and the last pages of each work. Underlines and notes in pencil occasionally. Pages folded, yellowed and brittle due to aging, some with closed tears effecting only the margins, except for the last 7 leaves. A closed tear at the lower edge was restored by tape throughout. The first and last leaves are taped also at other edges, the last leaf with a tiny loss of the text. Small wormholes throughout, effecting only the margins. Overall in good condition.

Extremely scarce contemporary edition of the official police and forensic documents of the Tiszaeszlár Affair.

The Tiszaeszlár Blood Libel (1882) is history’s first formal prosecution for blood libel and the first ritual murder trial in which forensic medicine and scientific procedures featured prominently in the court’s deliberations.

On April 1, 1882, a 14 years old Christian girl named Eszter Solymosi disappeared in the north-eastern Hungarian village Tiszaeszlár, and a rumor about the rituals murder perpetrated by the Jews started to spread in the village. Somewhat later, already in the summer, a body of a young girl was found in the river at a nearby village which corroborated the talk and led to the accusation, arrest, and imprisonment of thirteen local Jews. Their six-week trial between June 19 and August 3, 1883, covered by the Hungarian and international press, was carried out in a tense atmosphere of antisemitic propaganda and agitation. The height of the procedure, the closing argument of the defense attorney Károly Eötvös on July 30th, was a seven-hour impassioned plea chiefly relied upon the documentation of the repeated forensic examinations and autopsies of Solymosi’s alleged corpse by the different medical teams.

The troubled and tragic story of Eszter Solymosi’s alleged body began when some local ferrymen found it in the river near Tiszaeszlár and buried it on June 18, 1882. On the same day, the corpse was exhumed for police inspection and reburied. The day after, the cadaver was disinterred for the first medical forensic examination and transferred to a close city. On June 20, it was transported to Tiszaeszlár where the second police inspection took place. The body was again relocated, this time only within the city, for the first forensic autopsy carried out by a team of local doctors. After that, the remains were rested in an unmarked grave until December 7, when they were exhumed again for another forensic autopsy, performed by an expert medical team sent from the capital. Due to the lack of necessary equipment, the doctors were unable to conclude regarding crucial details, thus they requested the body be sent to Budapest. For some reason only half of the body was sent to Budapest on December 18, the other half was kept at the local court preserved in jars, thus never buried properly. The examinations eventually never proved that the body belonged to Solymosi or was murdered ritually, and the case resulted in the acquittal and release of the accused Jews on August 3, 1883.

The first work in the present volume, Beilagen zum Thatbestand der Tisza-Eszlárer Criminal-Affaire, contains the documentation of the police and forensic medicine paperwork produced during the investigation of the drowned body (as it is detailed above), the second, Die Tisza-Eszlárer Criminal-Affaire, is an official summary of the stages of the investigation and the forensic statements achieved by mid-December 1882.

Extremely scarce, we couldn’t find any copies in libraries or any other institutions.

Price: €8,000.00