Angelmakers

In 1929, a mysterious “poisoning epidemic” brought nationwide fame to the Hungarian village of Nagyrev. The police arrested fifty-one women implicated in a hundred and forty murders. One villager recalls hearing the warning: “Don’t go there! There, husbands that behave badly with their parents-in-law are liquidated.” In the village, people still remember the murderous wives and the method of extracting arsenic from soaked flypaper. There was in fact a local midwife, eager to help the suffering wives… When the elderly get talking, out come the stories of ill-treated wives and alcoholic husbands. The poisoners are now given another image. Marriages were often arranged by the family, with the wife owing obedience to the “lord”. So… how can one not understand? “It wasn’t a revolt, just a way of escaping one’s destiny.” The criminal affair gradually becomes mingled with the story of all women.