1192: Anna Göldi
The Last Person to be Executed for Witchcraft in Europe
Born: 24 October 1734, Senwald, Switzerland
Died: 13 June 1782 AD, Glarus, Switzerland
Anna was born into a very poor family at the bottom of the social ladder. She worked as a maid in various households from the age of fifteen, but despite her humble origins she was described as being fairly well educated for a woman of her day.
When Anna was thirty-one, she got pregnant with her first child. The father was a traveling mercenary and had left the country by the time their baby was born. Sadly, for Anna, the baby died when it was less than a day old. Because of the baby’s untimely death, (the child accidentally suffocated to death), Anna was accused of killing the child.
After being found guilty of killing her child, Anna was sentenced to six years’ house arrest in her sister’s home. Rather than accepting the punishment, Anna fled her village and moved to the larger town of Glarus.
While living in Glarus, Anna began to work for the wealthy Zwicky family. She also became pregnant by the family’s adult son and gave birth to a baby boy. What happened to the baby is unknown, but Anna was socially ostracized for the affair. Even though the father of the baby wanted to marry her, this was not possible because of their differing social statuses.
Because of the affair, Anna moved on and began to work for other families, eventually finding herself in the employ of the Tschudi family. After working for the family for a time, Anna was eventually accused of putting needles in one of the daughters’ milk (this was a sign of witchcraft at the time). Anna was forced to quit her job and was highly encouraged to leave town.
Eighteen days later, another daughter became ill and vomited pins and other pieces of metal. Anna had left the household over two weeks before, but she was still the main suspect, and Mr. Tschudi publicly claimed that Anna had cursed his daughter.
Anna was arrested and put on trial for poisoning the girl (interestingly, she was never actually accused of “witchcraft” even though she was widely seen as using the craft to poison Mr. Tschudi’s daughter). The vast majority of witnesses who testified were friends of the Tschudi family. Anna initially claimed innocence, but after being tortured several times, she finally broke and admitted she had cursed the girl with the Devil’s help. Anna was found guilty and sentenced to death.
She was beheaded, not burned at the stake, as most people tend to believe when hearing “executed for witchcraft.”
Today, historians speculate that Mr. Tschudi (as an educated elite) was fully aware of the fact that “witches” (like the Europeans had believed in in previous centuries) were not real. By the time of Anna’s death, Europeans as a whole no longer believed in witches, witchcraft, or anything of the sort—which made Anna’s trial and execution that much more astounding. From a modern perspective, it seems more likely that Mr. Tschudi simply wanted to get rid of Anna, and the only reason it was possible was because of his prominence in the local community.
It has been speculated that Mr. Tschudi wanted to get rid of Anna because they had had an affair. It has been thought that Anna was threatening to reveal their relationship to the public, and Mr. Tschudi feared for his up-and-coming political career. After she was dead, he had a document drawn up denying they had ever had any kind of physical affair.
In 2008, the Glarus government exonerated Anna of any wrongdoing, finally clearing her name completely.
In 2017, a museum was opened in her honor to help exonerate Anna and tell her true-life story. The museum is also dedicated to further exploring and educating those about witch trials in Europe.
Anna has been memorialized in a novel, on film, and on stage, all of which has kept her memory alive and in the public consciousness.
Badges Earned:
Find a Grave Marked
Located In My Personal Library:
Magic and Witchcraft: An Illustrated History by Ruth Clydesdale
The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian P Levack
Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/last-witch-executed-europe-gets-museum-180964633/