Kozminski's Brother (recovered thread)

[Chris]

I'll take your word for it, Chris. There is a tree for him on Ancestry, giving birth year 1849, but it doesn't mention day or month so may well be an estimate.

The book I posted a link to says 1 June 1849, and a lot of online sources including Wikipedia say 10 June 1849. Of course, the error in the year could have arisen (for example) by subtracting his age at death from the year of his death - though his New York Times obituary says he was born in 1841!

[Robert]

The only US census I have access to - 1880 - gives his age as 34, which isn't much help.

Household:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
David LUBEN Self M Male W 34 POL Merchant POL POL
Louise LUBEN Wife M Female W 22 CA Keeping House LA LA
Seman J. LUBEN Son S Male W 6 CA POL CA
Ruth LUBEN Dau S Female W 1 CA POL CA
Waoni LUBEN Dau S Female W 1M CA POL CA
Mira JACOBS Other S Female W 15 PANAMA Servant --- WEST INDIES
Lyn MARTIN Other S Female W 24 IRE Servant IRE IRE

[Chris]

(3) A note concerning Aaron's funeral, apparently among the records of Leavesden Asylum, is signed by a member of his family whose address is given as "The Dolphin", Whitechapel E, London. The signature has been read as "H. W. Abrahams" and the relationship to Aaron as "brothers".[4]
...
It also seems that the signature on the document concerning Aaron's funeral, previously read as "H. W. Abrahams", must really be Isaac's, and the relationship given must simply be "brother"
....
[4] Scott Nelson, "Kosminski's Relatives", Ripperologist no 39 (February 2002)

http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/dst-kosrelatives.html;

Paul Begg, The Facts, pp. 376, 509 (2004).

Last month I was given permission to look at the Leavesden records relating to Aaron, and it turns out that my speculation above wasn't quite correct. Here is a copy of the document instructing the steward of the asylum to deliver Aaron's body to the undertaker:


[LMA H26/LEA/B/02/031]

It is understandable that the "signature" as been misread as "H. W. Abrahams", but I think it's clear enough that it really says "I & W. Abrahams" - that is, Aaron's brothers, Isaac and Woolf. As the reverse shows, the document was originally posted to Aaron's brother-in-law, Morris Cohen, but evidently Aaron's brothers arranged the burial.

[Chris]

Another interesting document records the variation of Aaron's weight during the last three and a half years of his life:



[LMA H26/LEA/B/02/031]

[Sam Flynn]

Fascinating, Chris. Thanks for posting them. Looks like Aaron lost a comparatively scary 5lbs in little over a week during April/May 1918 - he must have been ill and/or refusing food.

[andy.j]

kozminski's brother

this is great research, and could open new locked doors. i myself have studied the case and was in the procces of writing a book after 10 years study of the case, it took me two years to write only to find problems in my theory and decided start again. i have studied many serial killers, there backgrounds and reasons including frontal lope damage, early mutilation of animals in life, abuse, mother fixation, even normal backgrounds to produce a serial killer. the whitechapel killer, as i call him as i do not believe he wrote any of the letters, it is most certain, and evidence points to a rag newspaper reporter, the ripper case started the cheap papers of scandle which still goes on today. hence mass confusion of what we take as evidence. my feeling was the whitechapel killer was someone who was known in the erea, but fitted in as someone ordinary like so many moderm serial killers, a joe bloggs that people knew. this is classic modern serial murder types of today and the whitechapel killer fits in to this type of killing. the murders have a differents to other such crimes in 1888, the police were not stupid to see the difference in his method. prostitutes new of police rounds down to the second of there beat, they cased the patterns of the bobbys' beat, i come from London and before the patrol car drug dealers, prostitutes and other such new where to go to have a quite spot to carry such things, i new strippers in kings cross 20 years ago and could get away with murder? as i have said i am from London and i remember my grandad telling me stories of jack the ripper thats what got me interested in the first place all those years ago. i like the new information on Kozminki's brother that you have brought to light, as a person like this is more probable than what we have so far as main suspects, famous, well to do ,sons of queen victoria, a famous painter[ my suspect at first] the establishment. there is no way cockney folk would hold back information of such crimes if they knew who the killer was, and believe me they would have known every gossip and what was going around there own comminity more so then as today, it cannot be someone who stands out in the crowd, he was in the crowd, on there door step! anyway i would like your comments but well done on finding this new info, thats very important to the ongoing mystery.
cheers,
Andy. J

[robhouse]

Hi Chris,

It is funny how after spending so much time thinking about this H.W. Abrahams, the solution is so simple and perhaps obvious.

I suppose one thing to point out is that the entire form was filled out by one person... do you think this was either Isaac or Woolf? Or do you think it was filled out by someone else?

I am bit unclear on what this form is actually. The post mark appears to read "Herts" so I am guessing that the form was sent from Leavesden to Morris Cohen, then filled out (by Isaac? Woolf?) and returned to Leavesden?

RH

[Chris]

I suppose one thing to point out is that the entire form was filled out by one person... do you think this was either Isaac or Woolf? Or do you think it was filled out by someone else?

I am bit unclear on what this form is actually. The post mark appears to read "Herts" so I am guessing that the form was sent from Leavesden to Morris Cohen, then filled out (by Isaac? Woolf?) and returned to Leavesden?

I suspect the form was filled in by another member of the family, or by an official of the Burial Society. Woolf was still making a mark rather than signing in 1900, and although Isaac produced a signature for his naturalisation application in 1901, it was a very shaky one. The writing doesn't appear to be the same as that in either Isaac's or Woolf's return in the 1911 census.

I think this document is essentially the family giving the undertaker authority to collect the body from Leavesden. The postmark is King's Langley, Herts, so as you say it was sent from Leavesden to Morris Cohen, but filled in by (or on behalf of) Isaac and Woolf. It must then have been given to the undertaker, who handed it in at Leavesden when he collected the body.

[Chris]

this is great research, and could open new locked doors.
...
i like the new information on Kozminki's brother that you have brought to light, as a person like this is more probable than what we have so far as main suspects, famous, well to do ,sons of queen victoria, a famous painter[ my suspect at first] the establishment. there is no way cockney folk would hold back information of such crimes if they knew who the killer was, and believe me they would have known every gossip and what was going around there own comminity more so then as today, it cannot be someone who stands out in the crowd, he was in the crowd, on there door step! anyway i would like your comments but well done on finding this new info, thats very important to the ongoing mystery.

Thanks for the kind words - though I should emphasise that these documents have been seen by previous researchers, and most of the pertinent information in them has already been published.

For what it's worth, I do think it's likely the killer was an "ordinary east ender", but probably one whom Ripperologists have never heard of.

[Chris]

Fascinating, Chris. Thanks for posting them. Looks like Aaron lost a comparatively scary 5lbs in little over a week during April/May 1918 - he must have been ill and/or refusing food.

That big weight loss is explained by entries in his medical record [printed by Begg, The Facts, p. 375] showing that he was "passing Loose motions with Blood and Mucus" on 26 May, and apparently this continued until 3 June, when "Diarrhoea ceased" is noted. (Actually those two weight measurements were just over a month apart.)

The first weight is quoted by Sugden, and the first and last by Begg, but I think it's useful to look at the whole sequence. (NB I've just noticed that the top part of the document containing the first date hasn't been copied - the date was May 17th 1915.)

Really this is the only evidence that is known about Aaron's stature and build. Sugden (p. 412) comments:
"His weight, recorded in May 1915, was only seven stone eight pounds and ten ounces, which suggests that he was small and slight of stature (he was said to have been in good bodily health as late as 1916)."

To add a bit more information about his general health, a note in April 1914 says "bodily condition Fair" [LMA H26/LEA/B/02/031], and in the case register his B[odily] H[ealth] is recorded as follows:
September 1910 - poor
September 1911 - weak
[April 1912 - tested for enteric fever (negative)]
September 1912 - weak
January 1913 - weak
July 1914 - fair
February 1915 - fair
February 1916 - good
[H26/LEA/B/4/32; extracts were printed by Begg, p. 374, but for some reason the comments on bodily health were omitted.]

So we can say that at least for the period of the first four measurements, when his weight was around 7 stone, 6-8 pounds, he was in fair to good bodily health. The brief medical notes don't record any concerns about nutrition until March 1919. On the other hand the fact that the weights were recorded at all may indicate that there was some concern.

Sugden concludes that the data are consistent with the accounts of witnesses who described a man of average or below average height. But I think if one looks at Lawende's description, which gives the suspect's height as 5 foot, 7-8 inches (initially reported as 5 foot, 9 inches) then Aaron's weight of 7 and a half stone is quite a bit less than would be expected, unless he was already quite significantly underweight. Schwartz's version of the height - 5 foot, 5 inches - would be somewhat more feasible, but in that case there is also the description of the man as "broad-shouldered", which would raise a similar difficulty.

[Chris]

I was interested to find that "David Lubin: a study in practical idealism" by Olivia Rossetti Agresti (1922) is available at the Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/details/davidlubinstudyi00agreiala

This includes a photograph of David Lubin and a brief account of his childhood (copied below).

A second edition of Agresti's biography was published in 1941. In it, the photo of Aaron's cousin, David Lubin, is replaced by a portrait. Sorry for the poor quality - it's a scan from a copy made by a very ropy (but not cheap) British Library photocopier: