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the same with some of his caretakers. Thus, should a nanny be found with a bunch of coins,
one might suspect her of theft, but making a legal case against her would be most difficult.
A strong suspicion of theft might lead to a dismissal, but not to a jail term.
There is still another problem with the story of the nanny’s theft and jailing. The Freuds were part of a very small number of Jews in Freiberg, most of whom were relatively recent immigrants from further East. To have publicly brought charges of stealing money against a local woman would have risked alienating the local population and stirring anti-Semitism.83 Unless there were other issues involved, why create all this trouble and risk? What is one to make of all this? One plausible interpretation is that the situation was something as follows: Amalia or Philipp did find a cache or collection of coins and toys, which led to a suspicion of the nanny and to her abrupt dismissal. It is also possible that Philipp went to the police or other authorities and discussed the matter. It is even possible that a penalty of ten months in jail came up when they talked things over. However, under the circumstances, there are reasons (discussed below) to doubt that the nanny was actually jailed for such a term. (The Freuds would not have been in Freiberg to verify it, since, at the very earliest, the nanny would have completed her ten months in November of that year, after they had left.) I suspect that the expression “ten months” became in Amalia’s mind or in family tradition a reality instead of a hypothetical or maximum penalty. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the whole story is fabricated or that the real situation has been very seriously distorted. It is clear that Amalia’s memory was emotionally charged, and the facts as reported seem quite odd. It is possible that Amalia’s anxiety over the religious impact of the nanny might have been enough to make her want the nanny dismissed on whatever charge she could find. There is, however, yet another completely different explanation of the nanny’s dismissal, which derives from a recent thesis of Krüll. This possibility is not directly germane to our present focus on the nanny’s religious significance, and hence it is postponed to the next chapter. Was Freud Secretly Baptized?Upon hearing about the clearly pious nature of the nanny, a number of people with whom I have spoken have raised an interesting question: Did the nanny secretly baptize Sigmund? (These have been people — Catholic priests, etc. — familiar with the mentality of devout Catholic women who care for children.) Many readers may not be aware that anyone who has reached the age of reason can baptize any unbaptized person, using any |