Seaside Home

[timsta]

Another "seaside home"

From a quick Google search for "seaside home" and "asylum":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holloway_Sanatorium

"Holloway Sanatorium was an institution[1] for the treatment of the insane, located on 22 acres (89,000 m2) of parkland near the town of Virginia Water, Surrey ..."

...

"The Sanatorium expanded in time by buying other properties. In 1891 Hove Villa, Brighton was purchased by the Governors as a home where patients could benefit from the fresh seaside air."

... which led me to:

http://books.google.com/books?id=SI0OAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA432&lpg=PA432&dq=%22hove+villa%22+brighton+sanatorium&source=bl&ots=cp4QR1rdMx&sig=_UX8WBcOmh1B2rUFfDLxh3PqXgE&hl=en&ei=5JdmTfmxAsaugQeanoSTDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22hove%20villa%22%20brighton%20sanatorium&f=false

... and:

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/pdf_extract/42/177/457-c

Anyone have a BJP subscription?

Timsta

[Chris]

I think Kosminski's birth records are on this side. He was from Klodowa I believe. Rob and Chris have done a lot of work in this area with Rob hoofing it to Poland maybe 2 years ago.

Yes, he was born in Klodawa in Poland. There are many things we don't know about Aaron Kozminski, but his nationality is not one of them.

[Errata]

Yes, he was born in Klodawa in Poland. There are many things we don't know about Aaron Kozminski, but his nationality is not one of them.

I 100% believe that he was born in Klodawa, which is currently in Poland. But if he was a Russian subject at the time of his birth, does that make him Russian or Polish? And if his immigration papers say Russian, because technically that would be true, does England see him as Russian or Polish?

I'm not at all certain it matters, but if his papers say he is Russian, and if he said he was Russian (which is probably 50% likely) then if Anderson says it was a Polish Jew, and Swanson says it's Kosminski who would be considered a Russian Jew under a bunch of circumstances, then there is a bit of a disconnect.

By the way, I'm almost certain thats where my grandmother was from. I have to check her birth certificate again and run it through a cyrillic pronunciation guide. Though I thought it was Klodava or Koldava. Maybe the town produced legions of terrible people and serial killers, because my grandmother was awful.

[Chris]

Errata

But what do you suppose Anderson could have meant by "Polish," if people from parts of Polish territory under foreign rule (i.e. all of it) are excluded?

[Errata]

Errata

But what do you suppose Anderson could have meant by "Polish," if people from parts of Polish territory under foreign rule (i.e. all of it) are excluded?

Well, to boil it down to it's simplest form, anyone who identified themselves as Polish.

Poland successfully rebelled a few times. Well, maybe not successfully as it didn't stick until World War I, but it did have stretches of time in which it was independent. The Austro-Hungarian Empire also had something quite a bit more like a client state than Russia did. That would retain a Polish identity. The Russians had that at times, but towards the end it was certainly considered Russian. Also the borders changed quite a bit. There is a a small town on the border of Poland that is famous for not having two successive generations born in the same country for about 300 years.

As for what Anderson may have meant, I don't know. He probably said what he meant. Personally I have a suspicion he was referring to a... phenotype maybe? Stereotype? I think he was referring to people who looked a certain way as Polish Jews, regardless of their Polishness or their Jewishness. Not PC, but not entirely without a single grain of truth. I cannot even remotely imagine that all of these cops asked their searchees what their country of familial origin was, or what religion they were.

Poland is complicated and Anderson... just isn't. Which is fine, but if officially Poland doesn't exist, and Anderson is not referring to the citizen of a foreign country, then how does he define Polish, especially if a great deal of Poles do not consider themselves Polish? My best friend says she is Russian, because she left the USSR in 1988. Now her grandmother's house where she grew up is in the Ukraine. She doesn't consider herself Ukranian. It's the whole land war in Asia thing. Even if you win you still don't know where you are.

[The Good Michael]

Errata,

In Kazakhstan, where I live, there are many Russians who define themselves as such... maybe all. They never say they are Kazakh because they aren't. They are Russians living in Kazakhstan. My guess is that Kosminski spoke Polish, lived in a Poland that was somewhat hostile to its Russian master, and identified himself as Polish. No way would he say he was Russian. I'm sure he didn't define himself as Russian Orthodox either though that was the religion of most Russians, nor as Catholic, though that was the main Polish religion. I'm sure it doesn't even matter. A suspect is a suspect.

Mike

[Errata]

Errata,

In Kazakhstan, where I live, there are many Russians who define themselves as such... maybe all. They never say they are Kazakh because they aren't. They are Russians living in Kazakhstan. My guess is that Kosminski spoke Polish, lived in a Poland that was somewhat hostile to its Russian master, and identified himself as Polish. No way would he say he was Russian. I'm sure he didn't define himself as Russian Orthodox either though that was the religion of most Russians, nor as Catholic, though that was the main Polish religion. I'm sure it doesn't even matter. A suspect is a suspect.

Mike

True enough. The only reason it would be a consideration is that it is entirely possible for someone from his town to identify themselves as Russian, like my grandmother. And if that were the case it would be extraordinary for Anderson to find out he was from Poland if he identified as Russian. Is all.

I wonder if he did speak Polish? My grandmother spoke Russian, but spoke the Polish Yiddish dialect. I had assumed that was the norm, but for all I know my family moved to a Russian neighborhood in New York and that's why she spoke Russian. Hmm. Well thats probably neither here nor there.

[Raoul's Obsession]

I think you two are about 90% in agreemetn and 10% in disagreement. By the sounds of it, you are both arguing from almost the same position but somehow are trying to disagree.

Errata, I take you point about phenotype/stereotype. In all likelihood, what was written on someone's birth certificate, or what nationality they personally thought themselves to be, never came into Anderson's thought process. I think it would be enough to say that the people from a relatively diverse geographical area that was quite different from London would all have been bundled together in the type of generalised statements that he was making. People are much better at telling appart groups within their own culture/country than people from other cultures/countries & racial groups. There's plenty of evidence on that. I think it is just because we are more used to making distinctions between our own group. Overall, Polish or Russian - I doubt Anderson cared.

(this is in no way trying to say there are no actual differences and no offense is meant to anyone. As someone from Luxembourg I wouldn't want you to call me Belgium).

Raoul

[Chris]

Errata

Call me simple-minded, but I suggest that by "Polish" Anderson simply meant someone from Poland - and the fact that Poland was occupied by other powers at that time was evidently no bar to that usage, or he wouldn't have used it!

[harry]

When a person visits or immigrates to another country,his nationality is accepted to be what his documents declare him to be.Normally,but not always,todays traveller or immigrant uses a passport.If a person has dual citizenship, and is entitled to have two passports,it is the one that is presented on arrival that determines what nationality he will be known by,in the country in which he lands.England of the 1800's,would I believe,be very similar.

[robhouse]

I think people still thought of Poland, if not as an independent country, at least as a fairly well defined area within Russia. See below, a close up of Isaac Abrahams' 1891 census entry, which lists "where born" as "Poland Russia."

Incidentally, I do not know what language would have been spoken in Klodawa at that time. I assume Polish, but it is possible that the people there spoke German. I think I remember reading that the people in a nearby Polish town (Kolo?) spoke German generally.

[Bridewell]

Been There!

With regard to the Hove Seaside home the page below might be of interest:

http://www.stgeorgesharrogate.org/stg01gurney.htm

Hi Chris,

It's still going & has been expanded greatly over the years. I spent a very pleasant period of convalescence there in late 2001 & the facilities are top class.

Best Wishes, Bridewell.

[PaulWilliams]

I attach a newspaper clipping stating that James Munro made a donation to the Police Seaside Home in 1891.

[The Good Michael]

Paul,

Thanks for the post. Call me thick, but this is the first time that I read that the Police Seaside Home was for only Metro police. Or at least I don't remember seeing it in print before.

Mike

[Lechmere]

Kosminsky was born in Klodowa which is in present day Poland.
In 1815, following the Congress of Vienna Poland was made an autonomous kingdom within Tsarist Russia. Klodowa was unambiguously within the Kingdom of Poland and the non Jewish inhabitants would have overwhelmingly spoken Polish.
Russia abolished this status in 1867 and incorporated Poland into Russia. However the name of the territory was not changed until 1888 (!), from when Russia called it Privislinsky Krai, which means Vistula Land (after the main river). However it was still colloquially called Poland in the west and one of the Tsar’s titles remained Tsar of Poland.
Hence during the period between Kosminsky’s birth in 1865 and his emigration to England in about 1882, it would have been quite legitimate to say that he was born in Poland.