The BBC has posted a sad story of a woman in Switzerland tried and convicted of being a witch. Apparently 1782 was a year during Europe’s “Age of Englightenment”, but the circumstances of Anna Goeldi’s death suggest that torture and capital punishment were tools of the elite to cover up their own indiscretions:

But today Walter Hauser, a local journalist, does not believe Anna died because isolated Glarus remained mired in medieval superstition.

Researching the original records of the case, he found something far more banal.

“Jakob Tschudi had an affair with Anna Goeldi,” he explains.

“When she was sacked, she threatened to reveal that. Adultery was a crime then. He stood to lose everything if he was found out.”

But at that time in Glarus, witchcraft was a crime.

Mr Hauser calls Anna’s trial and execution “judicial murder”.

“Educated people here did not believe in witchcraft in 1782,” he insists.

“Anna Goeldi was a threat to powerful people. They wanted her out of the way, accusing her of being a witch. It was a legal way to kill her.”

Tragic, but the most interesting part of the story is how people today are reportedly unable to take responsibility:

At the local high school, many students are uncomfortable about reviving this old story.

“I agree it was shocking, but that was Glarus then,” says one girl.

“It happened a long time ago,” says another.

“I don’t think people today should be held responsible for the past.”

It is a familiar argument. Switzerland used it for years as justification for not apologising for the way it turned away Jewish refugees during World War II.

Imagine if we managed security by saying people today should not be held responsible for the past. What constitutes the past and what level of injustice is dismissable? Weeks, months, years, decades…and who decides? I can not see why the students do not take the easy opportunity to make a positive decision on this and seek justice. What risk, what possible loss/burden, is there to them?