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.