In a dark era when Slovak lands were occupied by the kingdom of Hungary, it wasn´t a crime to kill or torture Slovak peasant and no member of nobility was ever punished for killing an innocent servant. If Elizabeth Báthory would murder only peasant girls no one would ever try to stop her. However after she killed so many young girls around her castles and there were not so many more left, she had do look for her victims between the members of lesser gentry. Perhaps she was also tired of torturing peasant girls and wanted to try something new. However the new wave of death girls didn´t go unnoticed and since she also started to plot against the king the prime minister of Hungarian kingdom palatin Thurzo came to her castle Cachtice to investigate... He and 2 other man became the eyewitnesses of horrifying scenes and so the unprecedented investigation started... Horrifying events were uncovered and the most brutal story of human cruelty became known for the first time. Thurzo wanted to finish the whole thing quickly but king Matthias asked for thorough investigation and so more than 300 witnesses gave testimony. 3 of her complices who helped Bathory to murder the girls were put to death but the bloody countess herself was only put under the house arrest. She was the most powerful and also richest lady in the Hungarian kingdom and her close relatives were kings and rulers of Poland and Transylvania ... not even king dared to punish her too hard. During the investigation it became known that many people knew about her crimes and many helped her in one way or another but also that no one dare to stop her. There was only one brave man - Lutheran minister István Magyari who publicly spoke about her brutal deeds during the sermon when the countess was also present in the church. He also wrote a complaint against her and send it to the court in Vienna. However since the victims were mostly Slovak peasant girls no one cared... The way how she tortured and killed the girls was so terrifying that it is very hard for me to write about it and you will have to look somewhere else for the description of her cruelty. She was mentally sick person with almost no human feelings but she definitely didn´t appear like that . She could sing beautifully , she spoke many languages and she could also write which was rare even among the nobility in those days. There are people all around the world today who claim that she was innocent and imprisoned only because she was protestant and rich and many people wanted to get her money. However Palatine Thurzo who led the investigation was protestant as well as Istvan Magyari and actually she did divide her inheritance between her children. It would be more human for us to focus on her victims who died in unimaginable terror and their families stricken with sadness and grief. May this horrifying story serve as an cautionary tale about the consequences of absolute power put into the hands of human beings and the destructive force of an ideas of supremacy. May such a terrible things never happen again. M.I. 2020
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