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Opinion

Murder in the Baker’s Oven

A trio of grisly tales from the ongoing series in which genealogist Rivka Goldblatt delves into the more interesting corners of the JC Archive

February 21, 2018 15:23
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2 min read

It was Miss Scarlet with the candlestick, in the drawing room. We play murder games, read murder stories and watch murder films. What is it about singular and grotesque murders that thrills us so much?

Psychology aside, here are some stranger-than-fiction murder stories from the archives of The Jewish Chronicle. They are from the 1800’s – but could they happen today?

Basle, Switzerland 25th December, 1841.
At Oberdorf, in the canton of Solothurn, there has existed for 40 years a report, that several Jews had
once entered a certain house there and had never been seen again.

A judicial investigation which was instituted at the time, was attended by no results and the impression became general, that the poor Jews had been burned to death in a baker's oven.

The house has recently passed into other hands, and the new proprietor, having occasion to make some alterations in the premises, discovered under the flooring, deeply buried in the earth, some human skeletons with cloven skulls.

The authorities have had their attention called to the circumstance.

Renovating your house? Better check news from fifty years ago. There may be skeletons in your cupboard – I mean, under your floorboards. The murderers will be long gone, though – unlike in this creepy tale from June 1858: