Anna Göldi (also Göldin or Goeldin, 24 October 1734 – 13 June 1782) was an 18th-century Swiss

housemaid A maid, housemaid, or maidservant is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era, domestic service was the second-largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids a ...

who was one of the last persons to be executed for

witchcraft Witchcraft is the use of Magic (supernatural), magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meanin ...

in Europe. Göldi, who was executed by

decapitation Decapitation is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and all vertebrate animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood by way of severing through the jugular vein and common c ...

Glarus Glarus (; ; ; ; ) is the capital of the canton of Glarus in Switzerland. Since 1 January 2011, the municipality of Glarus incorporates the former municipalities of Ennenda, Netstal and Riedern.exonerated Exoneration occurs when the conviction (law), conviction for a crime is reversed, either through demonstration of innocence, a flaw in the conviction, or otherwise. Attempts to exonerate individuals are particularly controversial in death penal ...

by the government of the

canton of Glarus The canton of Glarus ( ; ; ; ) is a cantons of Switzerland, canton in east-central Switzerland. The capital is Glarus. The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German. The majority of the population (81%) identifies as Christianity in Switzer ...

in 2008.

Biography

Born in

Sennwald Sennwald is a Municipalities of Switzerland, municipality in the ''Wahlkreis'' (constituency) of Werdenberg (Wahlkreis), Werdenberg in the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of St. Gallen (canton), St. Gallen in Switzerland. History Sennwald is the ...

as the fourth of eight children, Göldi started working as a

domestic servant A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or childcare, care for children and ...

at aged 18. Between 1762 and 1765, she worked at the

rectory A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of a given religion, serving as both a home and a base for the occupant's ministry. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, p ...

of Sennwald. When she was 31, Göldi was impregnated by a

mercenary A mercenary is a private individual who joins an armed conflict for personal profit, is otherwise an outsider to the conflict, and is not a member of any other official military. Mercenaries fight for money or other forms of payment rather t ...

, who left Switzerland before Göldi gave birth. Göldi's baby died the night it was born (something not uncommon due to the high

infant mortality Infant mortality is the death of an infant before the infant's first birthday. The occurrence of infant mortality in a population can be described by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of infants under one year of age ...

of the era). Under the accusation of murder of her own child, she was

pilloried The pillory is a device made of a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, used during the medieval and renaissance periods for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse. ...

and sentenced to six years of

house arrest House arrest (also called home confinement, or nowadays electronic monitoring) is a legal measure where a person is required to remain at their residence under supervision, typically as an alternative to imprisonment. The person is confined b ...

. Göldi subsequently escaped and found employment with the Zwicky family in Mollis, where she worked from 1768 until 1775 or 1776. There, she had a son with Johann Melchior Zwicky, the son of her employer, though they were not married. Göldi began working as a maid for the physician Johann Jacob Tschudi (1747-1800) in 1780 and looked after his five daughters. The master of the house is said to have had sexual desires for Anna. Anna Göldi filed a complaint against her employer for sexual harassment (and possibly rape) with the cantonal religious and judicial authorities, among whose officials was a member of the Tschudi family. Following this, Jakob Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means. Göldi, at first, escaped arrest, but the authorities of the

Canton of Glarus The canton of Glarus ( ; ; ; ) is a cantons of Switzerland, canton in east-central Switzerland. The capital is Glarus. The population speaks a variety of Alemannic German. The majority of the population (81%) identifies as Christianity in Switzer ...

advertised a reward for her capture in the '' Zürcher Zeitung'' on 9 February 1782. Göldi was arrested and, under

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

, admitted to entering in a

pact with the Devil A deal with the Devil is a cultural motif exemplified by the legend of Faust and the figure of Mephistopheles, as well as being elemental to many Christian traditions. According to traditional Christian belief about witchcraft, the pact is b ...

, who had appeared to her as a black dog. She withdrew her confession after the torture ended but was sentenced to execution by

. The charges were officially of "poisoning" rather than witchcraft, even though the law at the time did not impose the death penalty for non-lethal poisoning. During her

trial In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...

, official allegations of witchcraft were avoided, and the court protocols were destroyed. The sentence does, therefore, not strictly qualify as that of a witch trial. Still, because of the apparent

witchhunt A witch hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. Practicing evil spells or incantations was proscribed and punishable in early human civilizations in the Middle East. ...

that led to the sentence, the execution sparked outrage throughout Switzerland and the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

. The sentence was described at the time by historian

August Ludwig von Schlözer August Ludwig von Schlözer (5 July 1735, in Gaggstatt – 9 September 1809, in Göttingen) was a German historian and pedagogist who laid foundations for the critical study of Russian medieval history. He was a member of the Göttingen schoo ...

as a

judicial murder Judicial murder is the intentional and premeditated killing of an innocent person by means of capital punishment; therefore, it is a subset of wrongful execution. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' describes it as "death inflicted by process of law ...

("the murder of an innocent, deliberately, and with all the pomp of holy Justice".)

Legacy

In 1982, Eveline Hasler published a novel about Anna Göldi, since translated into English as ''

Anna Goeldin – The Last Witch ''Anna Goeldin—The Last Witch'' (1982) is the novel with which Swiss writer Eveline Hasler established her literary reputation. It imagines the life of Anna Göldi (Göldin in the contemporary spelling, indicating the female gender in the name; ...

. A Novel''. In 1991, Gertrud Pinkus released a film based on Hasler's book.

Exoneration

On 20 September 2007, the Swiss parliament decided to acknowledge Anna Göldi's case as a

miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent ...

. Fritz Schiesser, as the representative for Glarus in the Swiss parliament, called for Anna Göldi's exoneration, which was granted 226 years after her death, on 27 August 2008 on the grounds that she had been subjected to an "illegal trial". Apparently, Göldi's married employer abused his power after she had threatened to reveal their affair.

Memorial

The Swiss town of Glarus unveiled a memorial for Göldi in 2014. The memorial, consisting of two permanently lit lamps on the side of the Glarus court house, is intended to draw attention to violations of human rights that occur in the world today, as well as Göldi's story. A plaque on the building's facade explains the lamps' significance. "The memorial is an expression of atonement for the injustice that took place here. It will be an eternal light for Anna Göldi." On August 20, 2017, the Anna Göldi Museum was opened in the Hänggiturm building.

In popular culture

The life of Göldi has been the subject of a

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

, with Göldi performed by Masha Karell.

Doom metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

band 1782’s song “She Was a Witch” along with the band name were inspired by Anna Göldi

Bibliography

* Hasler, E. (2013) ''Anna Goeldin -- The Last Witch. A Novel'' Trans. Mary Bryant. Ed. Waltraud Maierhofer. Lighthouse Christian Publishing.

References

External links

Anna Göldi, the last witch killed in Europe
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldi, Anna 1734 births 1782 deaths Executed Swiss women People executed by Switzerland by decapitation Swiss people executed for witchcraft Swiss torture victims 18th-century Swiss women 18th-century Swiss people Violence against women in Switzerland Maids