Gerhard Schellenberg

Gerhard Schellenberg is the one attacker whom Leisl Neustadter catches in the act of trying to enter a bedroom. His capture gives the women evidence that the assaults are human crimes rather than imagined events or supernatural punishment, but his naming of seven other men does not settle whether those men are guilty. The uncertainty becomes part of the women’s debate over what they know—and whether certainty about every accused man is necessary for their decision to leave Molotschna.

Identification and Capture

Leisl forces herself to stay awake night after night until she catches a young man prying open her bedroom window, a jug of Belladonna Veterinary Spray in his hand. She and her adult daughter wrestle him to the ground and tie him up with baler twine. The young man is identified as Gerhard Schellenberg.

Later that morning, Peters is brought to the house to confront Gerhard. Under that confrontation, Gerhard names the other seven men involved in the attacks. The account establishes the circumstances of his capture and what he says about accomplices; it does not establish that the named men have been independently identified by Leisl as attackers.

Gerhard’s Accusation and Its Credibility

At the women’s meeting, Neitje invokes Leisl’s capture when Ona asks whether the imprisoned men might be innocent. Salome confirms the distinction: Leisl caught one man, Gerhard, and he named the others. Gerhard’s capture is therefore a concrete point in the women’s discussion, while the identities and guilt of the remaining accused depend, in this exchange, on his account.

Ona asks whether Gerhard might have lied. Greta challenges the possibility, but Agata points out that asking why an attacker would lie is not a sound objection. Salome accepts that the question is legitimate, even if possibly rhetorical, and offers circumstantial detail: the men Gerhard named had arrived late for fieldwork, tired and with dark circles under their eyes. Ona counters that lateness and fatigue are hearsay and conjecture, not proof that they had been breaking into houses.

What His Capture Establishes

The women do not need to resolve the truth of every name Gerhard supplies in order to recognize what his capture changes. As Salome argues, they know that women have been attacked by men—at least by Gerhard, and likely by others—not by ghosts, devils, or Satan. They have not imagined the attacks, nor are the assaults evidence that God is punishing them for impure thoughts and deeds.

Gerhard’s role is thus both evidentiary and limited. Leisl’s capture makes the existence of a human attacker tangible; his accusation points toward a wider group but remains open to challenge. The debate does not turn that uncertainty into a verdict. Instead, it separates the women’s knowledge of the assaults from what they can prove about each imprisoned man, and Salome maintains that the uncertainty does not alter the women’s decision to leave Molotschna.