Grim morning, and welcome to The Grim. I'm your host, Kristen. On today's episode, we'll be opening the gate and entering Buny Cemetery, located in Prague, Czech Republic. So grab your favorite mug, cozy up, and let's take a dig into history. In the Halloween season, people love to be scared with haunted houses, horror movies, and scary stories. One favorite horror scare by many is the Usain Asylum. And what better cemetery to visit than one meeting the Cemetery of Fools for an asylum?
Mental illness today is something more well known with treatments, therapy, and a lot more understanding than previously in our society. The start of facilities around the turn of the century saw experimental care that set up the foundations for breakthroughs in therapy we see today, but in turn created a living nightmare for patients at that time. Looking into the history of medical care in hospitals like Bonny Psychiatric Hospital, it sounds more like entering a horror house than a hospital.
Yet these facilities just didn't attempt to cure or house patients. They also sought to their burials within their own grounds. Due to the shame and misunderstanding of mental illness, families hid members in such hospitals. But they also, upon their passing, had them buried at the facility instead of a family plot, which is where we find ourselves today. The hospital is still active, of course, with updated treatments, facilities, and a rehab center..
Yet, it's its cemetery that was lost to nature, abandoned, that is once again being cared for, and fueling intrigue of visitors today. Oddly enough, not just patients were buried in Moniz. Doctors, caretakers, and also other villagers in the area saw the use of the grounds as burial ground, too. It's estimated to have 4, 200 souls within, established in 1912, and located just 700 meters west of the psychiatric hospital, on two and a half acres of land that can be entered by two large gates.
The main gate is on the east end, and a second, but more permanently locked gate is on the west end. The cemetery grounds are creepy, the air filled with anticipation of what might we'll find within, and a dark feeling of unease. Perhaps it's knowing or the assumption of what might have happened to the souls laid to rest within. The lack of care for over a century can still be seen with overgrown plants, huge mature trees, with a hidden dilapidated chadpole, and morgue.
The trees creating a lack of sun unable to reach visitors even on the clearest of days. It's almost like the grounds don't want any sunshine welcoming the gloom. The hospital was first established in 1906 but was postponed from opening from World War I, then finally began taking patients in 1912, which is when the burial started. Many Italian soldiers from the war became patients at the hospital and then passed away or buried on the grounds.
Many were placed in Prague after patients from the medical hospital in Perghini Vasugana, Italy were quickly evacuated in 1916, needing special care. The evacuation was from after the outbreak of the First World War, where the northern Italian region, or Trentino at the time, belonged to the Austrio Hungarian Empire. A monument for those who served in World War I can be found within, but you won't find any headstones of any soldiers.
In fact, you'll only find pieces or small parts of headstones in the cemetery. Hundreds of soldiers came to the psychiatric hospital in Moniz, were also prisoners of war, soldiers dying from typhus, or locals. It said only 47 soldiers returned to duty for those who entered the facility, making it a grim ending for their duty to their country. Adding to the mystery and dark aesthetic of the grounds, only one grave is left standing, fully intact and legible.
This is the grave of Maria Toomer Ritter, who died in 1912, which just adds more confusion to visitors. How could only one grave, that was most likely one of the first few occupied on the grounds, be still fully preserved today, but the rest in ruin? The theory behind her grave is that the generations of her family throughout the years took care of her gravesite, which explains why her grave might be in such a good condition.
Maria originally was born in Austria, then moved to Prague and married a Czech metal worker, Anton Tuma. The couple had two children, who are thought to have started taking care of her grave after the sudden loss of their mother. A document stating Maria died of brain decline exists, but this remains disputed.
You see, Maria at the end of her life was a maid to a wealthy family, which if she did suffer from brain decline, they most likely wouldn't have allowed her to remain employed in the funeral notes, or what some refer to as the Book of the Dead, Maria is said to have passed away from pneumonia, with the footnote stating died suddenly. She also, based on the hospital records, was not a patient, but thought to have lived nearby in the Bonice colony.
The Czech Republic's observant of All Souls Day, November 1st, or to some, the Day of the Dead on November 2nd, have many families visiting their relatives graves, paying respects, lighting candles, and cleaning up the gravesites. This tradition goes back hundreds of years ago, brought to the region by the Celts. Originally known as Samhain, that looks more like Samhan, it's believed that on this day, the spirits could return to the land of the living.
After visiting loved ones, the relatives helped them find their way back to the underworld by lighting candles and a clean gravesite. Of course, the evil spirits could be mixed in preying on innocent children, so masks were donned or their faces painted so the spirits would be tricked into leaving them alone. Which might sound familiar to some for the origins of trigger treating. This interesting detail also sheds light on the shame of mental illness at the time in the cemetery.
Burials happened without ceremony, families leaving their loved ones forgotten and letting their graves fall into obscurity or ruin. Which is why again, many believe Maria wasn't a patient, but instead a member of the community. So if the families didn't attend the funerals or assist in any way, who buried everyone within? The patients assisted in not only burying their peers, doctors, and neighbors, but also built the coffins they were buried in.
As a part of the hospital's occupational therapy, coffins were constructed by patients, perhaps this fact gives visitors the feeling of unease, knowing the lonely end most patients endured without their loved ones, following the path surrounded by the overgrown ivy, you can see where the graves eerily lie appearing more like heaping mounds. The graves prominent by how the dead were buried by the patients.
While two and a half acres seems large for some, fitting 4, 200 graves on the grounds wasn't exactly easy. Many were buried in layers on top of each other, adding to the height of the grave sites and giving visitors chills upon learning why their graves have more of a mound appearance. Going into history books, we all learned how World War I started with the assassination of Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand. But what happened to his assassin, Gervilo Princip?
A theory is that after passing away in prison in 1918, he became a resident of Boni Cemetery. When remembering history books, not much is explained of Princip's life to really understand why he radically decided to assassinate the Archduke and his wife. Born in Bosnia to an extremely poor Serbian family, life wasn't easy for Princip. Turning 13, he was sent away to Sarajevo, which at this time was the Austrian occupied Bosnia, for merchant school.
He then, during his schooling, was introduced to politics, and in 1911 joined the Young Bosnia Society, a secret local society with the intent to free Bosnia of Austrian rule. and unify south Slavs. Yet politics caused Princip his schooling after attending an anti Austrian demonstration. He was expelled from school. He then, unable to afford transportation, walked to Belgrade, Serbia, hoping to continue his studies in a new city.
Politically driven Princip did attempt to volunteer with a Serbian army, but was rejected for being too small and weak. In 1913, the country saw the Austrian military governor of Bosnia imposed Marshall rule, and publicly banned pretty much anything. Serbian Prince have then took to his studies finding inspiration from assassination attempts against imperial officials.
The Archduke of Austria, then with perfect timing for Princip, announced a visit to Sarajevo, where he took his inspiration into action. Coercing others to join his assassination plot, and luckily able to procure help from the Black Hand, a Serbian secret society with ties to the Serbian military intelligence, the plot became reality.
On Sunday, the 28th of June in 1914, Garvillo Princep mortally wounded Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand D'Este, and his wife, Sophia, by firing a pistol into their convertible car. He was only five feet from the couple. This event would forever change history in the world. Before he could shoot himself, he was arrested and imprisoned, chained to a wall in solitary confinement, he was subjected to harsh conditions and developed tuberculosis.
Princep passed away on April 28th in 1918, just 3 years and 10 months after the Archduke's assassination. Before he passed, Princep did meet with a psychiatrist, who asked him if he thought World War I wouldn't have happened if he didn't assassinate the Archduke. He proclaimed that World War I would have happened regardless of his actions, and he cannot feel himself responsible for the catastrophe.
Many believe Princep is buried in the St. Mark's Cemetery in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and not Banis, but this was in 1920. Some say, or the theory is, he was or is still buried in Bonneis in 1918 to hide his gravesite so others wouldn't make him into a martyr or a hero. Questionable if it's the truth, an unmarked grave more obscure than others does sit within Bonneis Cemetery with an unknown resident, even hidden from the Book of the Dead to this day. Could it be, Princep? That's for you to decide.
In 1933, in Czechoslovakia, a gruesome crime rocked the nation, and many believe its murderer, now recently revealed by officials, lies within. September 2nd in 1933, two suitcases in completely different cities were discovered with the butchered remains of a young woman.
Known as Altily Vranska, Vranska was a 22 year old Slavic prostitute living in Prague, who mysteriously was not only murdered, but cut up into pieces, packed away in two different suitcases that were then sent in different directions. The first suitcase was discovered by a railway employee on a passenger train from Prague at the railway station in Bratislava. Horrifically, it contained a woman's head and lower limbs wrapped in bedclothes.
The second similar suitcase was found on a wagon in Kosice, containing the rest of her remains. Officials quickly discovered both suitcases originated in Prague were related and thought to be loaded by the same individual the day before on the wagon and the train. Due to the state of the remains, the police for some time were unable to identify the victim causing them to ask the public for help.
The autopsy revealed an even more horrific death with two wounds on the head, most likely from a meat cleaver, and a double blow to the same spot on the head that penetrated six centimeters deep into the brain. The murderer then severed the victim's head with just two cuts from a knife while the victim was still alive, causing her to inhale her own blood before finally dying.
After, the murderer didn't stop there, inflicting seven more stab wounds on the victim's left breast, then three into the lung, and finally cutting the body into parts so it would fit inside the suitcases. It was an absolute gruesome murder fully intended to end the victim's life without failure. For years, the murderer went unsolved, but fascinated the public being so gruesome and violent with a murderer still at large. But was it truly unknown?
Years later, reopening the cold case, many believe the murderer to be Joseph Pinky, a Czechoslovakian soldier who was stationed in Prague. The details quickly fell into place this time with Peckney seeking services of prostitutes often, and in fact had an ongoing relationship with the victim.
He was even seen on the night of her murder with her, but somehow perhaps because of rank and status not seen as a potential witness, even though his alibi and then testimony contradicted each other and several witnesses could place him with the victim at the time of her death. Peckney never confessed to the murder of Otele Vazqara, but his friends claimed he confided in them and admitted he in fact did commit the murder.
He then, later on, was committed to the psychiatric hospital, eventually taking his own life, becoming a lifelong resident of Bonnece. Recently, he was confirmed by officials for her murder, closing the nation's most prolific cold case in history. In 1996, Bonice Cemetery had an unexpected but high profile visitor one afternoon, Margaret Thatcher. In a not so discreet way of arriving in a fleet of limousines, she arrived at the cemetery where gravediggers had opened a grave.
Using a ring for identification, someone was confirmed and then removed from Bonice and taken back to Great Britain. Some say it's believed to be a relative or an ancestor of her husband, Dennis Thatcher, But no official confirmation was ever made. In 1951, the cemetery saw its last burial, and then in 1963, it was turned over to the city of Prague, where its upkeep was forgotten. It then saw vandalism, grave robbers, and nature take over the grounds quickly, forming what we see today.
The popular nickname of the Cemetery of Fools took, and is now a familiar name for the cemetery for many. Around the 1960s and 70s, like many other cemeteries, Bonissat's visitors interested in the occult and practicing on the grounds. Many satanic rituals are said to have taken place with candles and a possible awakenings in the spirits. In 2000, re interest in the grounds began, with upkeep resuming and small tours available for a price.
Italian historians, due to the soldiers and even refugees who were evacuated from Italy in 1916, have retaken an interest as well. Looking further into Bonice's past, nowadays teenagers, paranormal enthusiasts, and historians find themselves entering Bonice's gates. Many reported feeling nervous, odd aches, unexplainable changes in temperatures, and weird anomalies with cell phones and cameras.
No outright claims or experiences of hauntings are said to have been in Bonice, but its grounds give its visitors extreme pause for unexplainable reasons. For film enthusiasts, Boney's Cemetery was featured in the 1984 film Amadeus for its unique and dark gloomy grounds. Bonisa's luck gates might not deter enthusiasts from entry, but many aren't truly quite alone when within.
Its eerie presence filled with gloom makes it a perfect Halloween or October destination, one the Grimm can't recommend enough. Known as the creepiest cemetery in Europe, it's kinda hard not to recommend a journey within to wander and explore for yourself. The question is, would you dare to enter the Cemetery of Fools? The grave grind for Boni's Cemetery was a salted Vietnamese iced coffee from Caffeine. For more honorary grinds in the area, please visit the grim. com.
For now, we're closing the gate on Boni's Cemetery. We hope you enjoyed our dig into history. If you did, leave us a review wherever we're haunting your podcast queue, or subscribe today to join us next time when we open the gate on The Grimm.