When They Burned the Jews

My novel, The Silver Candlesticks: A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition was published by Wicked Son this week. The story is based on my family’s history before they left Spain in 1597 and opens with a scene during the first auto da fé in Sevilla in 1481. Spain later expelled all Jews from the country in 1492. Many remained, however, including my family, and continued to follow their faith despite having been forcibly converted to Catholicism. My ancestor Juana Gonzales de Orozco might well have been present when twelve Jews were burned alive for secretly practicing their Jewish rituals. I have imagined her horror as the opening of the novel. Please read the excerpt below. I will be posting more over the next several days. In the meantime check out my website to order the book.

Sevilla

12 February 1481

Juana weaved through the crowds storming the Plaza San Francisco, hoping she could remain on the fringes. The young woman had become separated from her husband outside the silversmith’s shop. She clutched the candlesticks to her breast as the angry Christians surrounding her shouted at the secret Jews.

“The gates of hell await!”

“Burn them!”

“Repent and accept Christ before it is too late!”

The screams were deafening. She wanted to cover her ears, but her hands weren’t free. She wished she had given the heavy candlesticks to her husband Ambrosio to carry.

Juana leaned back against the wall of a shop as the procession passed in front of her. First the bishop, his gold staff glistening in the noonday sun. Then the inquisitor, two dozen priests, and a handful of city officials. At the end of the line of dignitaries, the tall, hooded executioner led the yellow-robed prisoners by a long rope that bound them together. The crazed crowd fell in behind, shoving Juana along through the narrow streets of Sevilla to the walls encircling the city. At the Torre del Oro on the banks of the Guadalquivir, the stampede halted. Bodies crammed against her until Juana thought she would suffocate. A bony hand grabbed at her elbow, the long nails digging into her flesh. She twisted her torso to see whose hand it was, but a large man with a protruding stomach forced the fingers to release their grip as he trampled the person underfoot.

Slowly, those nearest the gate squeezed through the stone arch-way and Juana was again driven forward until she too emerged on the other side. Before her stood a large wooden platform erected along the banks of the river on a stack of tree trunks stripped of bark. She stared up in horror at the six men and six women, bound to tall stakes by thick ropes that barely concealed their emaciated, near-naked bodies. She shut her eyes tight but could not block out the voice of Inquisitor Alfonso de Hojeda shouting from the platform. . .

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