During and after World War II, rumors and legends circulated about secret factories to which human beings were lured for slaughter and to be rendered into sausages and other meat products. The existence of such sausage factories was “proven” by reference to intended victims who had supposedly escaped or by the claimed discovery of bits of jewelry or clothing in the meat. “Human Sausage Factory” stories were told all over Europe, and some versions made their way to the United States as well, including one published (and debunked) in The New Yorker in 1946. In Estonia in the 1960s and later, children told simplified versions of these legends not as believed stories but simply as “thrillers” or “shockers,” (i.e., Horror Stories or Scary Stories). An example:
A mother had a daughter. She gave her child a ring as a birthday present. Soon she sent her daughter shopping. The daughter went along an asphalt road and disappeared underground. Mother waited and waited, waited but her daughter didn’t come. Mother went and bought some minced meat. At home she began to fry the meat. Suddenly she saw the same ring in the minced meat. Then she realized what had happened to her daughter.
In recent years similar stories of human flesh sold as meat circulated in the United States and were attributed to various minority groups operating restaurants, or to homeless people struggling to survive.
Update New Topic
