Appendix 6

(p. 432)

From the Speech of the Czech Attorney Dr. Baxa before the Jury Court in Kuttenberg. [8]

Dr. Baxa first explained that the compensation for costs for the poor mother of the murdered girl was unimportant. But the mother had a right to demand that she learn why her daughter was murdered, why she had been killed in this frightful manner!

"Let us go at once through all the motives which could come into consideration here; she had no enemy, she was devout and kind and honest. A murder for revenge, therefore, is not a possibility. The medical findings showed that the girl was untouched and remained so. A lust-murder therefore did not occur. A robbery-murder, perhaps? The murdered girl owned nothing, and what she did possess was found with her. What, then, was the motive for this frightful act? So the mother asks herself over and over again anew, why did her daughter, on a well-travelled way, on a bright clear day, have to die such a terrible death?

Now, gentlemen of the jury! The perpetrators, as in a whole series of cases which have preceded it, counted upon succeeding in not being discovered this time, too. But the Bible has ever said, that at the commission of the crime of murder, the blood of the victim cried unto Heaven. (Great commotion [in the courtroom].) But here, indeed, the blood was unable to cry unto Heaven, for the blood had disappeared! But the body speaks to Heaven in a terribly mysterious language, yet we understood this language and we finally succeeded in lifting the darkness that was supposed to be spread over it.

We were in a position to find the body in time, and from all this we could tell the mother how her daughter was killed. (Great commotion.) You know, gentlemen of the jury, how the doctors testified yesterday. You have heard how the unfortunate girl was strangled, how she was rendered unconscious with blows from a stone, and how the fatal cut was inflicted. That, gentlemen, says everything. If it was only a matter, for the murderers, of killing the girl, they need only, of course, have tightened the rope a moment longer. And consider how many pieces of evidence of [their] guilt they would thereby not have supplied. They would have shed no blood, they would have been finished all the sooner. But it was not the life of this girl that they wanted, but something (433) different. Let us think about the last hour of this unfortunate victim.

We think of how the rope was thrown around her neck, how three men suddenly bent over her, how they struck her on the head, ripped off the clothes from her body with terrible force, how she, perhaps, in the beginning, believing that this was an assault upon her honor [i.e., virginity], suddenly had to see how the knife shone, that terrible instrument in the hand of one of the men, how they prepared everything for the horrible ritual-slaughtering, how they inclined her head to the side, how she sees now, for the first time, what they intend to do with her, how the whole terrible truth of that for which she has been selected becomes clear to her -- and, gentlemen of the jury, you will agree with me, that this girl is a martyr. Gentlemen! We have never seen such a case. Yesterday you listened to the expert opinion of the physicians. Is there still need of proof that the murderers did not want the life of this girl, but rather wanted her blood alone? (Powerful excitement.) That is no longer debatable! From out of the courtroom of the Kuttenberg circuit court today, yonder into all Gaue, it is shouted that among human society live men who demand the blood of their fellow men! We shrink from this. We defend ourselves against these horrible thoughts, our emotions struggle against it, against this frightful secret, guarded for centuries.

But here the fact exists! The actual, irrefutable fact, and against what has been established here, no man on earth is able to prevail.

Now a second question forces itself on us. For what is the blood needed? And there, gentlemen, I say to you now: It is the responsibility of all Christian humanity to unwrap this secret. It is the duty, the highest duty of the authorities, that they elucidate why there are people among us who use the blood of of their neighbors for sinister purposes. We have the right to protect ourselves, indeed, we must defend ourselves against these people who require our blood. This terrible secret should finally be aired, it should finally be made clear who these people are, whether it is only a religious sect, or whether it is a race, we must defend ourselves and demand that the State proceed against them. We warn the world that it is seeking to preserve this secret still longer.

Look at the accused and the society in which he lives. Why does Hilsner lie so stubbornly, why is he supported by his entire society? Hilsner knows very well that, if he confesses, the whole secret would come out, for it would all come out, whether it was one schächter or another who made this cut [in the victims's throat].

Therefore, why should we not help in discovering those who are complicit in this! I say (434) to you, that the present proceedings are not the end of the Polna murder affair. It is only the beginning of a new investigation, we are far from the end of it. We will seek, seek inexorably to find out who the other perpetrators were, we will find them, and then the whole Christian world will heave a sigh of relief, as if freed from a monstrous nightmare."

Dr. Baxa then stated all the circumstances which made the guilt of Hilsner beyond doubt, and said that the manner of the execution of the murder, the limitless brazenness with which it was performed, amounts to the conclusion that the perpetrators had to have gone to work with genuinely fanatic boldness, as if they believed that their crime would not come to light for all eternity. Dr. Baxa stated in conclusion that his conviction concerning the guilt of the accused stood rock-firm.

"In the name of justice and integrity, you must vote in the affirmative and you can vote with full conviction, and we will have taken a further great step forward along the road which we are resolved to follow. . ."

Copyright 2001 by R. Belser. Reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission of the translator is not permitted. All rights reserved.