Hi, we're your host's Anthony Delaney and Maddie Pelling.

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Hi everyone, it's Maddie here. Before we begin our episode on the Black Death and the persecution of Jews, I want to let you know that this episode contains a graphic description

of mass murder. We begin as a false rumor, an anti-Semitic and baseless lie is swirling around Europe.

In 1348, the black death was rampant in Europe, and fear was spreading at the heart of society.

But another evil was spreading ahead of the disease, something even more insidious.

In August of that year, the city councillors of Strasbourg sent out letters to their counterparts

in other cities across modern-day Germany, France and Austria.

They wrote, urgently requesting evidence to back up a rumour that had already gripped their own city, that the disease destroying

Christendom was being created and spread by Jews. The replies poured in, affirming these whispers, tales of individuals accused,

captured and tortured under suspicion of murderous intent, proof the letterwriters claimed

of a Jewish conspiracy, spreading from Basel to Zofengen. One letter read thus,

All the confessions were made with two public notaries present, along with many other notable persons,

and their reports have been officially transcribed and redacted. You should know that all the Jews living in Villeneuve have been burnt by due legal process.

Almost no Jewish community was untouched.

Over and over again Jews were rounded up, found guilty of spreading the plague and killed.

This is after dark, and in this episode we're talking about the black death at the history of the Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony. And I'm Maddie. Now, if you've been listening,

you probably know that we've been looking at the history of the Black Death on After Dark

recently. And we have discovered many interesting facets. And if you haven't listened to those

...