Hanna Zaremska (Warsaw)
On May 2, 1453, the civic authorities of Wroclaw ordered the imprisonment of all the Jews and the confiscation of their properties (source No. 1). In a letter of June 22, addressed to the authorities and all the inhabitants of Silesia, King Ladislas V (the "Posthumous") entitled his emissaries to arrest all Jews accused of desecrating the host and to confiscate their property throughout the entire province (source No. 2). Between July 24 and August 13, 1453, Jews were burnt at the stake in Wroclaw and Swidnica, others died in the fire at the prison in Legnica, and persecutions also affected the Jewish communities in Jawor, Strzegom, Lwówek, Dzierzoniów, and Olesnica. In 1455 the king ordered all Jews to leave Wroclaw. A similar decision was made in Swidnica and several smaller places. From a report made by the inquisitor Grzegorz Heyncze in 1464 it follows that in that period there were also no converts left in Silesia. The dynamics of the persecutions shows the determination of the judges and suggests that they believed they were struggling against one and the same crime committed collectively, i.e. they thought Jews from various Silesian towns had been cooperating.
The events which took place in Silesia in 1453 are well documented. The source material consists of the correspondence between the king and the authorities of Wroclaw, the letters of the royal plenipotentiaries (source No. 3), fragments of the defendants' depositions (sources No. 4a, 4b), registers of the Jewish properties confiscated in various towns (source No. 1), a detailed story of Jews capturing the host, including a description of their execution in Wroclaw - probably written for the use of priests (source No. 5), preaching exempla (sources No. 6, 7), passages from the life of John Capistran, records in annals and chronicles (source No. 8). Even though far from being coherent, this documentation allows us to see how the popular conviction of Jewish conspiracy against Christians was reflected in the legal proceedings, biased the investigation and persecution and inspired attempts (not always successful) to extend it to Jews from other regions.