Hilsner affair

Cases of blood libel occurred in Eastern Europe. Among those were the ones reported in Tisza-Eszlar, Hungary 1882; in Polna, Czechoslovakia in 1899; and in Kiev in 1911. The incident at Polna involved the accused Leopold Hilsner, who was defended by Thomas G Masaryk who was later to become the first president of the Czech Republic. Masaryk discussed the possibility of whether individual crimes could be interpreted as ritual murders. He explained how 'shameless anti-semites' looked upon every murder committed by a Jew as a "ritual murder" while the main concern should be an investigation of the real motive of the crime