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Author(s):
Heidrun
Hannusch
Specifications:
Hardcover mit
Schutzumschlag
Format:
13.5 x 21.0 cm
Pages:
184
Images
b/w:
18
Series:
Politik/Zeitgeschichte
ISBN:
978-3-86153-616-1
Release Date:
03.2011
Available:
yes
|
Todesstrafe für die
Selbstmörderin
Death Penalty
for Suicide
A Historical Crime
Case |
publication date: 07.03.2011
184 pages
ISBN: 978-3-86153-616-1 |
This meticulous and sensitive reconstruction
of a historical crime case in 1941 London
revolving around a suicide pact is also the moving
portrait of a woman's fate in exile.
On
December 9, 1941, a strange trial takes place in
London. The defendant is a German Jewess by the
name of Irene Coffee, accused, first, of
treacherously murdering her mother and, second, of
trying to kill herself. The death penalty meted
out by judge Travers Humphreys, a famous figure of
his day, is based on a law from 1821. But reality
has long since triumphed over law. Suicide is a
hot topic of debate in England at the time. Fears
of a German invasion and the mistrust of
foreigners and émigrés create an uneasy atmosphere
since the war's begin. Rumors of internment camps
have also been spreading. Famous figures such as
Stefan Zweig, Sigmund Freud and Virginia Woolf
contemplate putting an end to their lives and
eventually carry it out too.
Irene Coffee
entered a marriage of convenience in 1937 and
later brought her mother along. The two women have
no desire to go through the ordeals of flight and
persecution again. So they make a suicide pact -
and only Irene survives. Several people take up
her cause after the trial, securing amnesty for
her. But she's a broken woman by then and never
finds a home again. In 1968, she kills herself in
Australia.
Journalist Heidrun Hannusch
reconstructs the fate of Irene Coffee from
letters, diaries, testimonies of contemporary
witnesses, police reports and case files.
Flashbacks of her personal past, the historical
context of war and emigration, and comparable
suicide pacts of that era allow the author to
meticulously and sensitively reconstruct the
sequence of events.
A sympathetically written
and captivating chapter of contemporary history
that is also an indictment against the absurdity
of a law that, though somewhat weakened, still
exists today.
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