Döblin decoded

Eugene Jolas’s translation of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz offers this poser. Karl is being questioned by the authorities about his role in the death of Franz’s girlfriend Mieze:

“Who told you that?” “To bury it? Well, somebody. I just wanta know how I stand. Did I commit a crime when I helped to bury a corpse?” “Look here, the way you put the thing, it’s hardly a crime at all, or only a petty one. If you were not involved at all and had no interest in it. But why did you help?” “I’m tellin’ you, I just gave a hand for friendship’s sake, but that didn’t matter, at any rate, I wasn’t involved in the affair and it didn’t matter to me whether the person was or wasn’t found.” “Was there some kind of femic murder in your gang?” “Well—” (Eighth Book, p. 307)

The only definition that femic turns up is something my geology teacher would be interested: it’s a category of igneous rock with certain proportions of iron and magnesium.

The only explanation that makes sense to me is a missed translation to/from femicide, which does show up in Oxford as “murder of a woman.”