The Barrels of Cinkota: Béla Kiss and the Women Who Answered the Ad
In May 1916, a landlord outside Budapest opens a metal drum he thinks is full of petrol. Inside is a woman, strangled and preserved in wood alcohol. Then another drum. Then another. By the time police finish counting, twenty-four bodies lie on one tinsmith’s property — and the man who made the barrels has already vanished into the First World War.
Alexander Lawson tells the story of Béla Kiss, the so-called Vampire of Cinkota: lonely-hearts ads in Budapest papers, stolen savings, a locked room of letters, and a yard of sealed drums explained away as a wartime fuel reserve. Who the victims…
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