Question for Dan Norder, Wolf Vanderlinden, Stewart P. Evans

[Malcolm X]

George Chapman actually suffered from a rare disease, I FOUND THIS INFO OUT YEARS AGO ON GOOGLE. but i forget now, sorry...it was a type of blood disorder.

with Chapman it all depends if you believe Hutch or not, i dont because i believe Hutch is JTR, but it's a very close run race.

but if he was indeed telling the truth, then i honestly believe that he saw G.Chapman, i have never changed my mind once over the last 4 years or so.

because it's either one of these 2 guys and over the last 4 years i havent been able to get any closer than this, it's just nice to occassionally visit this forum and to check the place out !

the Kelly murder is crucial to your book, it is the only murder that you need to get totally watertight, so this rules out many top suspects, you need to be aware of everything with regards to this murder, the other murders mean little in comparison.

the Kelly murder is very obvious if you see it the way i do, it screams at you, but it's very hard to get others to agree with you.

[HelenaWojtczak]

George Chapman actually suffered from a rare disease, I FOUND THIS INFO OUT YEARS AGO ON GOOGLE. but i forget now, sorry...it was a type of blood disorder.

with Chapman it all depends if you believe Hutch or not, i dont because i believe Hutch is JTR, but it's a very close run race.

but if he was indeed telling the truth, then i honestly believe that he saw G.Chapman, i have never changed my mind once over the last 4 years or so.

because it's either one of these 2 guys and over the last 4 years i havent been able to get any closer than this, it's just nice to occassionally visit this forum and to check the place out !

the Kelly murder is crucial to your book, it is the only murder that you need to get totally watertight, so this rules out many top suspects, you need to be aware of everything with regards to this murder, the other murders mean little in comparison.

the Kelly murder is very obvious if you see it the way i do, it screams at you, but it's very hard to get others to agree with you.

I was just wondering if anyone on this thread has the foggiest idea what the above is about.

[ChrisGeorge]

George Chapman actually suffered from a rare disease, I FOUND THIS INFO OUT YEARS AGO ON GOOGLE. but i forget now, sorry...it was a type of blood disorder.

with Chapman it all depends if you believe Hutch or not, i dont because i believe Hutch is JTR, but it's a very close run race.

but if he was indeed telling the truth, then i honestly believe that he saw G.Chapman, i have never changed my mind once over the last 4 years or so.

because it's either one of these 2 guys and over the last 4 years i havent been able to get any closer than this, it's just nice to occassionally visit this forum and to check the place out !

the Kelly murder is crucial to your book, it is the only murder that you need to get totally watertight, so this rules out many top suspects, you need to be aware of everything with regards to this murder, the other murders mean little in comparison.

the Kelly murder is very obvious if you see it the way i do, it screams at you, but it's very hard to get others to agree with you.

I was just wondering if anyone on this thread has the foggiest idea what the above is about.

Hello Helena

Isn't Malcolm saying that the description given by George Hutchinson matches the description of Chapman? To me it's all in the eye of the beholder. Hutchinson's description of a dandy in Astrakhan coat and "big seal with a red stone" doesn't quite match Chapman, I don't think, though Malcom evidently thinks it does. Natalie Severn has written about Chapman as a dandy who liked to dress up. However, if such a character was seen at the murder scenes he would have been noticed by everyone. It seems more likely that the Ripper dressed down rather than up, or else was a working man without the finery that Hutchinson describes. Bob Hinton's book From Hell is useful for its discussion of the problems or rather implausibilities of the suspect description that Hutchinson gave to Abberline.

All the best

Chris

[HelenaWojtczak]

Hello Helena

Isn't Malcolm saying that the description given by George Hutchinson matches the description of Chapman?


Chris

I'm grateful for the translation.

The rare blood disease? Not mentioned in Chapman's post mortem.

There is no mention of his owning an Astrakhan coat. I'm sure Wolff would have mentioned it along with the "high hat, umbrella, patent boots and black bag".

By the way, Chris, I now have a drawing of Levisohn!

Wanna see?

Helena

[ChrisGeorge]

Glad to help, Helena. Yes I would be most interested to see a sketch of Levisohn. Maybe you would care to email it rather than post it here?

C

[Rob Clack]

Not you too! Look, I'm on a diet and I'm not half the man I used to be. Ask Rob Clack he came and saw me last week.

Yes and you looked very well and distinguished.

Rob

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Helena

Isn't Malcolm saying that the description given by George Hutchinson matches the description of Chapman? To me it's all in the eye of the beholder. Hutchinson's description of a dandy in Astrakhan coat and "big seal with a red stone" doesn't quite match Chapman, I don't think, though Malcom evidently thinks it does. Natalie Severn has written about Chapman as a dandy who liked to dress up. However, if such a character was seen at the murder scenes he would have been noticed by everyone. It seems more likely that the Ripper dressed down rather than up, or else was a working man without the finery that Hutchinson describes. Bob Hinton's book From Hell is useful for its discussion of the problems or rather implausibilities of the suspect description that Hutchinson gave to Abberline.

All the best

Chris

Hi Chris,
Klosowski's photographs with the flowers in his lapel show how much he liked to put on the style-and it was a very stylish item the carnation at the time---and his fondness for it was referred to by Levisohn in that quote we know he made about the top hat and being all la-di-da etc

I think I can see Klosowski as someone who attacked poor Kate , if not Mary Kelly. A barber surgeon 'gone wrong' who decided to re-enact stuff from childhood -a child who perhaps liked to torture animals -or liked trapping and killing butterflies and 'laying them out' lifeless ----later enjoying the gore of surgery with poor anaesthetics where the patients were 'laid out' in the wards of the Prago in Warsaw. Its likely that he witnessed, as a young apprentice, the grotesque and barbaric medical and religious practices that went on in those times--- especially during childbirth -chronicled by writers like Philip Wylie in 'Generation of Vipers' regarding the Church's practices in villages and towns in Poland ,where priests baptising babies ' in utero' added to the agony of women dying in childbirth----[Wylie though was attacking America rather than Poland but thats another matter entirely-] he does describe the known practices that would surely have made an impression on the young Klosowski.And maybe while he was seeing all this as part of a medic's duties he was sublimating his sadistic desires---but when he arrived in the UK he wasn't allowed to practise in a hospital so the urge overthrew him and he rolled up his sleeves and got down to it in the streets!
btw Chris, I doubt very much he 'dressed up' for murder ---IF it was him GH saw then that was just a fluke occasion.
Best of luck with your book Helena, [ Archaic's right,Stewart is one of the most generous researchers and one of the truest].
Norma

[HelenaWojtczak]

the flowers in his lapel show how much he liked to put on the style... Levisohn in that quote we know he made about the top hat and being all la-di-da etc
I think I can see Klosowski as someone who attacked poor Kate , if not Mary Kelly. A barber surgeon 'gone wrong' Best of luck with your book Helena, [ Archaic's right,Stewart is one of the most generous researchers and one of the truest].
Norma

Hello Norma

Yes he was a smart dresser, not as much as Lucy and Stanislawa but dapper.

Have to take issue with you here, my darling, but he was most definitely not a barber surgeon. Levisohn was a felczer in Russian Poland for seven years and in his court testimony he described exactly what a felczer was. The prosecuting counsel ignored what Levisohn said and made a semi-humorous comment about 'barber surgeons', which has been misquoted ever since. Full details in my forthcoming book, for which many thanks for your good wishes.

I do hope Stewart will forgive me for one small error in getting the authorship of a publication wrong, and send me more from his famous scrapbooks for inclusion in my book. (Nobody has seen fit to write a proper biography of Chapman before and maybe they never will again so this could be the one time such material will be used.)

And no I don't count R. Michael Gordon's works as biographies of Chapman for a thousand reasons, not least of which, how can I take anyone seriously who writes no less than four books about someone without ever bothering to spell his name correctly?

Helena

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Helena,
Will reply to your email later today.
Thankyou for clarifying this Helena sweetie ,and I look forward to reading your book very much!
I know he served a five year apprenticeship to a 'senior' surgeoen in Poland, Rappaport [spelling?].This corresponds more or less exactly with the apprenticeship to become a surgeon that was required here up until the mid 1850's.
After that he spent time as a kind of intern [?for want of a better description] in Warsaw apparently attached to the hospital and in 1886/7 for three months he took a course of training on the wards gaining experience to become a qualified junior surgeon at the Prago[Praga?] hospital Warsaw.This was slightly different from what had gone on here but not that different [up until the 1850's].This post 5 year apprenticeship here took place in a hospital such as Guy's and lasted twelve months .So it looks as though he never fully qualified as a surgeon despite the ambiguous wording of the hospital's certification.In the UK he worked as a barber.
Best
Norma
PS
But Helena are you studying him in the context of the ripper crimes ? If so then it is my view that this is really a sort of science that should be undertaken by a fully qualified police surgeon of today in the context of anatomical prowess/speed and knowledge,particulary of the use of the knife and concerning areas of the body that suppress consciousness as referred to by two of the police experienced surgeons of the time. Klosowski was in the right place at the right time.He has to be dealt with not just as a character who was executed for serial killing his wives by poison but also as someone who had the necessary knowledge of the anatomy , speed arising from a knowledge of the mechanics of spray from the carotid artery in the human body and its ability to be put on 'sleep' function and various other techniques referred to by such Dr's as Brown and Phillips at the time. The murder of Mary Ann Nichols was astonishing in terms of daring do---there were police men at both ends of the street at the time---ditto Annie Chapman---how did he perform all this so quickly if he didn't know his arse from his elbow?It also took confidence in handling a knife and in my view planning.He could have been a butcher yes but animals don't have the same neck structure for example......the profilers come much later---in my opinion.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Thank you Norma. To address your points I need to break down your message bit by bit.

"I know he served a five year apprenticeship to a 'senior' surgeon in Poland"...."In the UK he worked as a barber."

Do we agree that everything we know about his apprenticeship comes from only one source - Joseph Pietrykowski's translation of the Polish/Russian documents?

What if calling Rapaport a 'senior surgeon' were a mistranslation?

What if people who speak Russian, Polish and English to a higher degree of accuracy than Pan Pietrykowski could were to take another look and come up with a different translation?

Learned academic books about the feldsher system describe in very clear terms exactly what a feldsher was (for example Ramer, S. Professionalism and Politics: The Russian Feldsher Movement 1891-1918, in Balzer, H (1996) Russia’s missing middle class: the professions in Russian History,)

If we prefer the common man's description to those found in the books of experts, our old mate Wolffie Levisohn was a feldsher for seven years in Russian Poland. Who better to describe what a feldsher was? This he did under oath in the witness box, and despite the lure of self-aggrandisement,did not describe a feldsher as a surgeon.

Rapaport was a senior feldsher. A feldsher is not a surgeon. Therefore, Klosowski was not apprenticed to a surgeon. He was not trained to cut open bodies. He may have placed leeches on haemorroids, though!

Best,

Helena

[Stewart P Evans]

Thanks...

Yes and you looked very well and distinguished.
Rob

Thanks for that Rob. For goodness sake don't tell anyone that you were bribed to say that.

[Malcolm X]

sorry my fault, i'm not online that often so let me explain more

Chapman was a flashy dresser, but from what we know he never had clothing quite as flashy as that, well maybe if he was JTR then he got rid of that stuff after killing Kelly.

but it looks like (for so many reasons) that Hutchinson lied on purpose, but it's just a bit strange that he does indeed describe an older G.Chapman, and he does look old for his age anyway, this is highly suspicious.

the other JTR suspects looked nothing like that, yes and i'm surprised that this Hutchinson sighting dressed as outrageously stupid as this, his description is also too accurate for so late at night and in such a dark location, because the colours that you can not define at night are gold and red..... plus many other things too, this weighs heavily against Hutchinson.

[Natalie Severn]

Hi Helena,
Thanks for the revised translation.

1]Are you still writing this Helena with a view to exploring the possibilty that he might be the ripper?

[Natalie Severn]

Some source docs re Klosowski's qualifications

Hi Helena/All,
I know I sent you most of these in the trial attachment a while ago but are they the ones you dispute the translation of? They seem so official!
Anyway can you point to the ones wrongly translated so we all know what is in error?
Many Thanks
Norma

"October 23-November 4, 1885.—The Radom Surgical Society, of the town of Radom, hereby certifies that the surgical pupil, Severin Klosowski, was entered at the registry of surgical pupils by the Senior Surgeon, Moshko Rappaport, in the town of Radom, November 22-December 3, 1882.
Subject No. 8, and in accordance with Article 17, letter b, of the Surgical Society. One rouble in silver 220

Translations of Documents, &c.
was paid by him into the Treasury of the said Society.— In witness whereof, Brodinski, the Chief of the Society, testifies by affixing his signature and the
seal of the Surgical Society."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

" This is given to Severin Klosowski, surgery pupil, to the effect that from October 1, 1885, till January 1, 1886, he received instructions in practical surgery at the Hospital of Praga, Warsaw, and his general conduct was good.— (Signed) Krynick, Senior Surgeon.

" In accordance with the application of Severin Klosowski, and in consequence of inquiries ordered to be made, the present certificate is issued from the office of the Chief of Police of Warsaw to the effect that the applicant while residing in Warsaw was not observed by the police to be concerned in any improper conduct whatsoever. The present certificate is given to Mr. Klosowski under the proper signature and Government seal for the purpose of submitting the same to the Imperial University of Warsaw. Stamp duties have been collected.—Warsaw, April 29, 1886. Kasievitz, Deputy Chief of the Department. (Seal) A. Darenskov, Manager.


" Warsaw, November 15, 1886.—This is to certify that Severin Klosowski has been employed by me as surgeon assistant from January 20, 1886, up to the present time, and during the whole of that period he performed his surgical functions with a full knowledge of the subject, and his conduct was good. To this fact I testify with my own signature, and affix my stamp.—(Signed) D. Moshkovski."


" Ministry of Interior, Medical Administration of Warsaw, December 5, 1886.—In consequence of the application pre sen ted by Severin Klosowski, surgical pupil, the Medical
222
Translations of Documents/ &c.


Administration hereby testify to the effect that they do not see any reason to oppose his receiving the degree of a Junior Surgeon. The required stamp duties have been paid.— (Signed) Dr. M. Oreszaief, Collegiate Councillor and Inspector. A. Pominski, Secretary."


Cheers
Norma

[HelenaWojtczak]

Hi Helena/All,
I know I sent you most of these in the trial attachment a while ago but are they the ones you dispute the translation of? They seem so official!
Anyway can you point to the ones wrongly translated so we all know what is in error?
Many Thanks
Norma

They sound official Norma because they ARE official. But they were written in Russian. And that means we are not reading the original documents but SOMEONE'S translation of the original, which is not the same thing. And for the most part, the translation is correct.

HOWEVER, Joseph Pietrykowski, the Pole from Kennington engaged by the police to translate the documents, made mistakes.

The Polish word for surgeon is CHIRURG.

Through a contact in Poland I have now seen Rapaport's entry in their equivalent to our street and trade directory. He was NOT a "CHIRURG". He was a "starszy felczer" - as was his son after him, and there were hundreds of "starszy felczers" all over Poland.

Starszy means senior or advanced and felczer means a nurse-practitioner.

Pietrykowski didn't know the English for felczer, so instead of "advanced nurse" we have "senior surgeon", which in our modern day English usage means someone highly experienced at cutting open bodies and removing/replacing various parts found within, or draping them decoratively over shoulders and sideboards etc.

Felczers did not do deep invasive surgery, though, as I said, they could stick a leech on your haemorroids (if you let them!)

Some people who want Klosowski to be the Ripper AND believe the Ripper needed surgical skills cite the "fact" that he was a trained "surgeon".

The problem we have with the other documents: viz:-

" Severin Klosowski, surgery pupil, he received instructions in practical surgery at the Hospital of Praga, Warsaw, and his general conduct was good.— (Signed) Krynick, Senior Surgeon.

and

"Severin Klosowski has been employed by me as surgeon assistant from January 20, 1886, up to the present time, and during the whole of that period he performed his surgical functions..."

is that unless we can see the ORIGINAL Russian, we do not know what word Joseph Pietrykowski translated as "surgery" and "surgical" etc.

We know that he already mistranslated (for Rapaport) "starszy felczer"
as a "senior surgeon" instead of a "senior nurse" so if Krynick was also a "starszy felczer" then Klosowski was an assistant to a nurse, not a surgeon.

We need to see these documents, and apparently they do not exist.

But the one thing we DO have is this: Rapaport was most definitely listed as a "starszy felczer", and starszy definitely means senior or advanced and felczer definitely means a nurse-practitioner.

Helena