What to do with your fiancé if he doesn't live up to expectations? According to pre-war examples, it can be cooked, for example. Or cut up. Or - finally - pour hydrochloric acid.
The headline of one of the February 1936 issues of Dziennik Poranny screamed: Sensational process to cook a fiance in boiling lard! Journalists did not provide too many details, but the information found in the article is enough to state that the relationship of the 15-year-old with 30-year-old Perec Elenberg (he was the victim) did not go well.
On the critical day, Elenberg arrived at Junkierowa's apartment, where a row broke out, and Chaja Junkierówna poured boiling lard on Elenberg, who was sleeping in her bed. Junkierowa gagged her fiancé's mouth, her brothers held him by the arms and legs, and her daughter poured boiling lard over him.
It must hurt! Elenberg did not survive the torment, and Junkierówna joined the quite ranks of juvenile delinquents.
Interestingly, the crime - although particularly cruel - repeated an extremely popular theme. The betrayed or abandoned girls kept pouring bottles of sulfuric acid on their infidel brides' faces. And when there was no acid at hand, they would take some other poison, tar, or even lard.
It all started with the high-profile case in Paris. In 1875, a widow by the name of Grass treated her lover with acid and the fashion caught on. As you can see in that era, the customs lasted a long time, because after fifty years it was still common to give people straight in the eye.
Lard. An underrated weapon against bad brides.
Stanisław Milewski, the author of "The Dark Matters of the Interwar", described such a story from 1924. A certain Franciszka Wacławiak broke her long engagement with the policeman Daniel Lachowicz, but when she heard his announcements in the church, she poured a bottle of sulfuric acid on him. She had burned his eyes out and he was deprived of his job.
Surprisingly, the court treated her quite indulgently, as if not bearing in mind that the law enforcement officer had lost his face (literally!). Wacławiakówna was imprisoned for two years.
Acid straight in the eyes
Leokadia D., a twenty-year-old maid from Łódź, tried to follow the same pattern, but the events turned out completely wrong for her.
The newspaper "Prąd" wrote in the issue of November 28, 1931:
Michał Łakowski had a long relationship with D. who declared his intention to marry her. The naive maid did not even know the address of her fiancé. A few days ago, D. found out that Łakowski was cheating on her and was going to marry another woman.
Lard with cracklings? How about a fiance with cracklings? (photo Kagor, license CC ASA 3.0).
The story was, as you can see, typical. And the solution was also supposed to be typical.
Leokadia, as if nothing had happened, invited the lying fiance for a walk. This time, however, it came with a bottle of hydrochloric acid. A loud argument took place under the windows of tenement houses on Cegielniana Street. Łakowski confessed to everything, but he did not intend to show remorse. Then:
D. she took out the bottle and, after draining some of its contents, she intended to pour the rest on her companion's face. However, the latter realized what was going on in D. and snatched the bottle from her , while tugging, the liquid spilled out and burned D's face and hands.
Revenge of a scorned woman. The case described by "Dziennik Poranny"…
The poisoned and burned girl was taken to hospital in a very serious condition. The police detained Łakowski, but that nothing but self-defense could prove to him, he was released immediately.
In this case, the motive was undoubtedly a hurt feeling. Often, however, partners tried to free themselves from men they did not love at all.
The dismembered fiancé
In the last days of December 1935, Łódź was moved by a terrible discovery. The dismembered body of a man was pulled out of the Scheibler's pond. After a few days, the police unraveled the bloody mystery. Contrary to the original predictions, it was not about bandit scores or a robbery victim. There was a corpse of a degenerate fiancé in the pond.
Sensational headline from "Daily Morning".
The victim was 23-year-old Stanisław Kubik, a worker in Widzewska Manufaktura. The murder was carried out by five people together:Agnieszka Bielczyk, Zofia Bielczyk, her daughter Anna Jabłońska, as well as 23-year-old Henryk Bielczyk and 16-year-old Feliks Bielczyk. The ringleaders were the women themselves, because both boys they were mentally retarded according to the police. The matter was explained in Dziennik Poranny in the issue of January 9, 1936:
A worker who was murdered in such a cruel way (...) was Zofja Bielczyk's fiancé. Bielczyk was previously engaged to a certain Watczak. Kubik, who was an adventurer and a type determined to do everything, forced his rival to resign with the threat of death and terror. Later, Kubik began to terrorize the Bielczyk family. He spent all the money he earned on vodka, which he drank in Bielczyk's apartment (...).
On a critical day after a boisterous libation, a brawl took place between the participants of the binge, during which Kubik was murdered. In order to get rid of the body and thus avoid punishment, it was advisable to dismember the body and hide the parts.
Most of the body was removed by the police from the pond, but his legs and head were missing. After a few days, the first ones were removed from the sewage pit under the outhouse in the yard of the tenement house in which Bielczyk's lived. The head was pulled from the closet of the neighboring house. All women were brought to trial. The newspaper reported that face the death penalty.
"When Grzędzielówna repelled the first attack, Józefa grabbed a pot of boiling fat ...". Another story of revenge, this time from "Głos Poranny" (click to enlarge).
Even a more brutal, and certainly more unusual story took place a dozen years earlier in Warsaw. The case was considered so outrageous that it never found its way to the press, and it was only described in the Supreme Court ruling of June 15, 1921, which was dug up from the archives by Stanisław Milewski.
A certain Władysław Targowski - by the way, a "goy" - raped or used an unknown Jewish girl. Her brothers attacked him, beat him badly, and effectively prevented him from harming any other girl. One of them… bit Targowski off the testicles. Victim bled to death. This is called revenge!
Sources:
The article is based on source materials and literature collected during the work on the book "Upadłe damy II Rzeczpospolitej".