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From Evans & Skinner:
The letter was received at the Foreign Office on Dec 14, 1888, and the next day receipted at the Home Office by C.M. (whom I assume to be Charles Murdoch, Assistant Under-Secretary) and also forwarded to Police.
Dresden
11 December 1888
My Lord,
Regarding American German, Julius I. Lowenheim, came here this morning with a statement respecting the Whitehapel murders. He said that shortly before the occurence of the first crime he became acquainted in a “Christian Home” in Finsbury Square, with a Polish Jew one Julius Wirtkofksky, who, after consult[ting] him on a special pathological con[dition] told him that he was determined to kill the person conc[erned and] all the rest of her cl[ass] informant added, that he had recently addressed the London Police Authorities on the subject, without having received an answer.
He further said that he could throw no light on the subsequent movements of Wirtkofsky but that he could identify him without fail.
Lowenheim stated that his address, after the next few days would be, Poste Restante Nuremburg. It of course struck me that I had heard a similar [ ] before, and that the youth’s object was to accomplish a journey to London, gratis.
However, he showed no anxiety in that respect, and the impression which he made upon me was not unfavourable.
[signature &c. illegible.]
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Charles Van Onselen wondered aloud if one of the people he researched is this man, one Ze’ev Wulf Witkofsky/Wilkowski, sometimes Wilf or Wolf, who turns up in recorded history in the prostitution trade in South Africa at the turn of the century. However, the author could not trace his antecedents, or verify his presence in London in 1888.
I find it an odd coincidence that Julius is the first name of the young doctor, and of the man he reported.
Roy
The letter was received at the Foreign Office on Dec 14, 1888, and the next day receipted at the Home Office by C.M. (whom I assume to be Charles Murdoch, Assistant Under-Secretary) and also forwarded to Police.
Dresden
11 December 1888
My Lord,
Regarding American German, Julius I. Lowenheim, came here this morning with a statement respecting the Whitehapel murders. He said that shortly before the occurence of the first crime he became acquainted in a “Christian Home” in Finsbury Square, with a Polish Jew one Julius Wirtkofksky, who, after consult[ting] him on a special pathological con[dition] told him that he was determined to kill the person conc[erned and] all the rest of her cl[ass] informant added, that he had recently addressed the London Police Authorities on the subject, without having received an answer.
He further said that he could throw no light on the subsequent movements of Wirtkofsky but that he could identify him without fail.
Lowenheim stated that his address, after the next few days would be, Poste Restante Nuremburg. It of course struck me that I had heard a similar [ ] before, and that the youth’s object was to accomplish a journey to London, gratis.
However, he showed no anxiety in that respect, and the impression which he made upon me was not unfavourable.
[signature &c. illegible.]
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Charles Van Onselen wondered aloud if one of the people he researched is this man, one Ze’ev Wulf Witkofsky/Wilkowski, sometimes Wilf or Wolf, who turns up in recorded history in the prostitution trade in South Africa at the turn of the century. However, the author could not trace his antecedents, or verify his presence in London in 1888.
I find it an odd coincidence that Julius is the first name of the young doctor, and of the man he reported.
Roy
Sink the Bismark
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