Memories of a River

Aged just 14, Solymosi Eszter vanished without a trace after having been sent on an errand on April 1, 1882. Soon, a rumour started to make the rounds in the village of Tiszaeszlár: a blood libel that Jews had killed the Christian servant girl. Paranoia grew when, more than two months later, the body of a drowned girl was brought out of the Tisza. At that point, voices in parliament were already crying out ferociously for the deportation of all Jews on Hungary’s soil.

On July 29, after a lengthy period of investigations, the last antisemitic trial in the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy began. It ended with the accused’s acquittal. The so-called Tiszaeszlár Affair had already been the subject of three fiction features: Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s Der Prozeß (1948), W. Lee Wilder’s The Vicious Circle (1948) and Erdély Miklós’s Verzió (1979). Judit Elek’s version is the most detailed and historically accurate – sticking close to the original court transcripts and sober in its presentation of a culture ready and willing to turn genocidal if given half a chance. And it’s not over yet.

– Olaf Möller

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