Did all the parties involved truly believe in the motive of ritual murder, or could there have been other motivations behind this supposed explanation? For example, Karel Baxa, who represented the victim’s family and accused Hilsner of ritual murder, later in his career associated with Jews and supported Jewish movements.
Of course, a certain degree of opportunism was involved, but I believe that the majority of society genuinely believed in the ritual murder motive. It was somehow rooted in popular tradition. For over three hundred years, such accusations were officially considered unacceptable and shameful at the governmental level in Europe. And yet, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries—in a modern state, during an age of rational thinking, and after the technological and scientific revolutions—this accusation re-emerged and was taken seriously.
I spent a great deal of time studying the everyday interactions between Christians and Jews in Europe around 1900. The relationships were close, even intimate; families and neighbors often got along. And still, certain old superstitions continued to exist in popular consciousness. Even Masaryk himself wrote that as a small boy, he would cross the street when a Jew was approaching—an instinct shaped by stories his mother had told him. But of course, a legal trial could not be conducted based on superstition alone. It required evidence, scientific knowledge, and stable pillars for prosecution.
Prosecutors in five similar cases of ritual murder accusations across Europe at roughly the same time were able to present such pillars and persuade authorities of the legitimacy of the charges using the language of modern science.
Baxa indeed promoted the ritual murder accusation and tried to steer the investigation in that direction. Whether he did so for nationalistic reasons, to gain public popularity, or because of a personal belief that fanatics existed among the Jews—we can only speculate. Baxa later became mayor of Prague. We see similar examples elsewhere. For instance, the mayor of Vienna rose to popularity through his outspoken antisemitism—even in a city where Jews made up 20% of the population. Later, he collaborated with Jewish groups and was harshly criticized and labeled a hypocrite. His infamous reply was: “I decide who is a Jew.”
Masaryk, as you mentioned, was a hero to the Jewish community. For his intervention in the case of Leopold Hilsner, he was harshly criticized by Czechs and exposed his family to serious danger.
Indeed, Masaryk’s decision to get involved in the Hilsner case was extremely unpopular, and he risked both his reputation and his family’s safety. He managed to invalidate the first verdict from Kutná Hora, but only with great difficulty. The Austrian authorities initially even refused to distribute his publication The Need to Revise the Polná Trial. The public reaction was intense. Masaryk had to send his wife and daughter to safety in England, while he remained in Bohemia under threat of death. Even students protested during his lectures. When he turned to the university leadership for support, they advised him to resign. Even the university condemned his actions. At the same time, mainstream Czech media were denouncing the Dreyfus Affair, which only reinforced the idea of Jews as traitors and culprits.
It's also important to remember that the death of Anežka Hrůzová truly shocked society. Her body was discovered by a group of searchers, cut in half, and no blood was found at the scene. For society, it was easier to blame a group of outsiders—Jews—than to confront the reality of violence against women and perversion within their own ranks.
It is interesting that today, Czech society has a very positive relationship with Jews, and is largely unaware of its own antisemitic past. The Czech Republic’s friendly stance toward the State of Israel is well known. What changed?
In the early decades of the Soviet regime, antisemitism was a punishable offense. Even after 1945, it was strongly condemned and sometimes criminalized. With the expulsion of the German population, the national conflict was essentially ended, and Jews no longer had to struggle to position themselves between two rival ethnic groups. On the other hand, after 1950, Israel became an enemy state in the eyes of the Soviet regime, and any support for Zionism became punishable. So while antisemitism was officially condemned, strong antizionism took its place.
When I was here in the 1970s, religious services did still take place, but participation meant sacrificing one’s future. Jews had to choose between their identity and their prospects. And of course, the Slánský trial was openly antisemitic. The media openly emphasized the Jewish background of the accused, implying guilt by ethnicity. Slánský was essentially accused of Zionism, which was inherently linked to his Jewish identity.
After 1989, there was a major shift, especially in the state’s approach. The persecution of Jews under communism prevented Czechs from associating Jews with the communist regime, as happened in Poland. After 1989, the Czech government made a deliberate decision to support and defend the State of Israel internationally—something that remains rather unique in the European context. Naturally, it is much easier for Jews to live in a country that sympathizes with the State of Israel. In contrast, today in the United States, Jews are experiencing the opposite. I’m not an expert on this topic—I say this simply as an observer. But the fact that the Czech state is pro-Israel significantly eases the lives of Jews living here.