Which Schwartz interpretation is acurate ?

[GUT]

G'day Rivkah

What did testifying "in camera" mean then?

It meant testifying behind closed doors.

IE the press and public did not get to see and hear what was said.

[moonbegger]

Putting the two statements together really doesn't make a clear picture at all. There are obvious differences between the two and I would say they are very important differences.

Hello DRoy ,

Apart from the pipe/knife , what would you say the important differences are ?

cheers , moonbegger .

[Jonathan H]

Police blunder?

That they took Schwartz seriously (I think because of the anti-Semitic element, missing from the newspaper account, which Warren and those below were hyper-sensitive about fearing riots) and his description, later realizing it was not a match for Lawende's--and that the latter was the more reliable witness, and thus was utilized as such in line-ups.

Remember this is Donald Swanson, who is not Super-Cop.

He may have thought that the Ripper disguised himself as a woman, he may have forgotten that the Coles murder came after 'Kosminski' was sectioned, and he may have believed--hoped?--that the same Polish suspect was deceased (eh, he wasn't!)

If the above is so, and it may not be so, there is a pattern here of being hopelessly wrong.

[RivkahChaya]

Hello Rivkah.

"Do we know for certain he was speaking Hungarian? I assumed he would be speaking Yiddish."

This is much debated. Jury still out.

Cheers.
LC

It's not impossible for a Jew from Hungary to speak Hungarian (Magyar, that is-- the dominant language, and what most people think of as "Hungarian"), but it's virtually impossible that he didn't speak Yiddish. It would require some kind of fairy tale circumstances, like having been raised in a Christian orphanage, and only discovering as an adult that he was Jewish, or his father being the atheist personal physician of some highly placed official who kept him away from Yiddishkeit, for him not to speak Yiddish.

It's also possible there was an elite class of assimilated Jews in Budapest-- I'm not an expert, as I don't have any family from Hungary-- but it's unlikely those Jews would immigrate to England to live in London's East End. If he fit into the Jewish community in the East End, he surely spoke Yiddish.

I think it's pretty likely that he gave the interview in Yiddish, dagger/pipe aside. You can't work back from a word similarity to say that well, then it must have been Hungarian. Everything else favors Yiddish. One of the interpreters blundered, or one of the transcribers did.

Suppose Schwartz said "The glint of a knife" under some kind of light, and the interpreter couldn't imagine what the heck that was, so he changed it to the only kind of glint of light he could think of that made sense?

[lynn cates]

Yiddish

Hello Rivkah. Thanks.

I tend to think it was Yiddish myself. How many Hungarian speakers worked for "The Star"?

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Hello Rivkah. Thanks.

I tend to think it was Yiddish myself. How many Hungarian speakers worked for "The Star"?

Cheers.
LC

Yiddish in and of itself is a problem because it's not a complete language as we think of it. There are any number of words that simply don't translate easily into English, or don't translate at all. Or vice versa. Yiddish is closer to jargon than it is to a language like French, or Russian, etc. It's specialized. And it's a lot of information packed into single words.

For example, the word schlep. It doesn't have a word to word translation. If I have to schlep something to my dads house, it means I have an journey I don't want to take with an annoying burden and the whole thing is a pain in the ass. That's a lot of information in one word. If a translator says I have to take something to my dad's house, that's not the same thing. And if there's a body at my dad's house, the investigators really want to know I used the word schlep, because there's an attitude to that word that may be pertinent. I don't use that word unless I'm annoyed. Cops might want to know that. A simple translation doesn't give them any information about my state of mind, and because it seems like a simple enough statement, it likely wouldn't occur to them to ask about my state of mind about doing such a simple thing.

My cousin speaks only Yiddish in the home. Which is a drama in and of itself, but that's neither her nor there. But every fifth word or so is either straight English or straight German. I suppose technically they could be considered part of the Yiddish language, but really it's just filling in holes. And a lot because it's based on Hebrew, which was solely a liturgical language until about 100 years ago. The Hebrew word for blue jeans was "blue jeans" until about ten years ago. Hebrew words have to be made up all the time because the language had no new additions for about 2000 years.

So how accurate a translation of Yiddish is depends on the translator. First of all, it depends on his translation process. My sister is a native English speaker, who learned Spanish and then Italian. She translate Italian into Spanish and then the Spanish into English. That translation process can distort meaning quite a lot. I mean, she knows what she means, but she has a tough time explaining something in Italian to others. It also depends on which language the translator learned first. Also how many times the translator has heard the story. And whether or not the translator has some understanding of what the cops were looking for. All of these things can skew a translation.

I would bet the nouns and verbs are correct, but I think the adjectives might be a little off. And I don't think any subtext made it through the translation process, which is important.

[RivkahChaya]

Yiddish in and of itself is a problem because it's not a complete language as we think of it.

Not to mention that, because it's the language of a people, but not a nation, there is no standard version, and then regional variations. If the translator was not also Hungarian, then the word Schwartz used for knife/pipe may have been unfamiliar to the translator, if he was Polish, or Russian.

The word I use for a kitchen knife is "masir," but the word for a kosher butcher's knife is "chalaf." Neither of those sound vaguely like the word "tobacco pipe," although "masir" could, I suppose, sound slightly like a pipe that one might use as a blunt instrument.

I am not a true native speaker, though.

[Dr. John Watson]

Schwartz's statement appears in the October 1, 1888, issue of The Star and although his name is not mentioned in the article, it is abundantly clear Schwartz is the witness interviewed. The story reports that important information concerning Stride's murder had been presented to police at the Leman Street station by "a well-dressed Hungarian . . . who could not speak a word of English but came to the station accompanied by a friend who acted as interpreter." Police would not divulge the witness' name or address, but the reporter "ran him to earth in Backchurch Lane." The writer notes that "his Hungarian was quite as imperfect as the foreigner's English, but an interpreter was at hand and the man's story was retold just as he had given it to police."

In the Star's version of Schwartz's account, after describing the attack on Stride, Schwartz tells of a second man who exited a public house, shouted out "some kind of warning" to the man attacking Stride and then "rushed forward as if to attack the intruder (witness)." Note what follows next: "The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in the second man's hand, but he waited to see no more." The writer's use of the word "positively" is significant, I think. It suggests that the reporter, recognizing the implications of a man with a knife near the scene of Stride's murder, questioned Schwartz closely about what the second man was holding in his hand, to insure that he understood exactly what the witness/interpreter was saying.

This doesn't necessarily end the pipe vs. knife debate. First, it is apparent that neither police or press made use of a professional interpreter, instead relying on whoever was at hand. Second, since we have only a summary of Schwartz's statement to police, we can't tell how closely he was questioned concerning the object the second man was holding. Using subjective analysis, however, it becomes apparent is that Schwartz thought it important enough to mention in both statements. For police, holding a pipe in his hand might be of value in locating the second man ("look for a pipe smoker"), but would Schwartz have recognized the importance of that? On the other hand, facing a man with a knife in his hand would certainly register fairly high on the scale of importance, I would think. To put it another way, would Schwartz have been as frightened of a man chasing him with a freshly-lit pipe in his hand, or a knife? Logic dictates the answer.

Logical John.

[Wickerman]

Schwartz's statement appears in the October 1, 1888, issue of The Star and although his name is not mentioned in the article, it is abundantly clear Schwartz is the witness interviewed. The story reports that important information concerning Stride's murder had been presented to police at the Leman Street station by "a well-dressed Hungarian . . . who could not speak a word of English but came to the station accompanied by a friend who acted as interpreter." Police would not divulge the witness' name or address, but the reporter "ran him to earth in Backchurch Lane." The writer notes that "his Hungarian was quite as imperfect as the foreigner's English, but an interpreter was at hand and the man's story was retold just as he had given it to police."

In the Star's version of Schwartz's account, after describing the attack on Stride, Schwartz tells of a second man who exited a public house, shouted out "some kind of warning" to the man attacking Stride and then "rushed forward as if to attack the intruder (witness)." Note what follows next: "The Hungarian states positively that he saw a knife in the second man's hand, but he waited to see no more." The writer's use of the word "positively" is significant, I think. It suggests that the reporter, recognizing the implications of a man with a knife near the scene of Stride's murder, questioned Schwartz closely about what the second man was holding in his hand, to insure that he understood exactly what the witness/interpreter was saying.

This doesn't necessarily end the pipe vs. knife debate. First, it is apparent that neither police or press made use of a professional interpreter, instead relying on whoever was at hand. Second, since we have only a summary of Schwartz's statement to police, we can't tell how closely he was questioned concerning the object the second man was holding. Using subjective analysis, however, it becomes apparent is that Schwartz thought it important enough to mention in both statements. For police, holding a pipe in his hand might be of value in locating the second man ("look for a pipe smoker"), but would Schwartz have recognized the importance of that? On the other hand, facing a man with a knife in his hand would certainly register fairly high on the scale of importance, I would think. To put it another way, would Schwartz have been as frightened of a man chasing him with a freshly-lit pipe in his hand, or a knife? Logic dictates the answer.

Logical John.

The problem John is that we are dealing with a source (The Star), who had a reputation for inexactitudes.
Certainly the press in general published errors in detail on a wide range of issues concerning the Whitechapel murders but the Star even published details contrary to their contempories, and in one well known instance were almost sued for defamation for publishing speculation as fact.

You have to choose between two baskets of eggs, but one basket has holes in it.
Take your pick...

[lynn cates]

difficult Yiddish

Hello Errata, Rivkah. Thanks.

Yes, Professor Turtletaub used to complain that the Yiddish in the Arbeter Fraint was HIGHLY Germanic and bloody difficult to translate.

Cheers.
LC

[Dr. John Watson]

The problem John is that we are dealing with a source (The Star), who had a reputation for inexactitudes.
Certainly the press in general published errors in detail on a wide range of issues concerning the Whitechapel murders but the Star even published details contrary to their contempories, and in one well known instance were almost sued for defamation for publishing speculation as fact.

You have to choose between two baskets of eggs, but one basket has holes in it.
Take your pick...

Hello Wickerman! Your point is a valid one, but in this particular instance, I think the wording suggests quite strongly that the reporter made some effort to pin Schwartz down on exactly what the second man was holding, as evidenced by emphasizing that Schwartz "states positively" he saw a knife.

John

[RivkahChaya]

Is it possible he spoke Hungarian to the Star, and Yiddish to the police? If his Hungarian was imperfect, than it probably wasn't his first language, so he likely spoke something else as well, and Yiddish seems most plausible.

I still don't know how you get "pipe" from "knife," except to suggest that he used a regionalism I don't know (there are plenty of Yiddish words I don't know), that sounded like pipe, or else said that it "caught the light," (that is, glinted) and the translator misunderstood.

[Errata]

Hello Errata, Rivkah. Thanks.

Yes, Professor Turtletaub used to complain that the Yiddish in the Arbeter Fraint was HIGHLY Germanic and bloody difficult to translate.

Cheers.
LC

Yes, but it's more complicated than that. The most common version now is mostly Polish, but the most common version in the time and place of Jack the Ripper was mostly Slavic. Polish Jews generally could speak either dialect, Hungarian Jews spoke Polyish, but Russian and Ukrainian Jews spoke Litvish. German is the ancient base because of where the language originated, but any addition to the language after say, 1500, depends on the dialect. Polyish or Litvish. And Hungarian is a very odd language, unique in the region. Hungarian words don't even remotely resemble Russian or German words. Or Polish words. Most of the Jewish immigrants were Russian and Polish. There were Hungarians, Lithuanians, and even Germans. But Litvish would have been the most popular dialect.

At least spoken. Ukranian Yiddish was used for Yiddish Theater, while Litvish was the literary standard of Yiddish. And the differences are pretty profound. Different accents make different vowel sounds. And the different types of Yiddish do that. But they also change which syllable is accented, or which vowels are accented. Which changes the sound of the language entirely. It is a highly Germanic language in any dialect, but about a third of the vocabulary was coming from other languages. The word for anything invented or conceived after 1500 was going to be in a different language entirely from another dialect (since it wouldn't appear in Hebrew either)... It's why the Jewish community didn't blend. Communication was hard.

[lynn cates]

Dravidian

Hello Errata. Thanks.

"And Hungarian is a very odd language, unique in the region. Hungarian words don't even remotely resemble Russian or German words. Or Polish words."

Indeed. That's because Hungarian (Magyar) is one of only three European languages that are Dravidian based (the other two are Basque and Finno-Ugric). ALL the rest are Indo-European.

That's why I am astonished that "The Star" man spoke ANY Hungarian.

Cheers.
LC

[Dr. John Watson]

What seems to me far more important than any confusion over whether a man held a pipe or a knife in his hand, is the fact that Israel Schwartz was apparently never called to testify at Stride's inquest. Throughout the several days of testimony, and Mr. Baxter's lengthy detailed recitation of the facts of the case and his findings, there is not a single mention of, or reference to, Israel Schwartz or the man he witnessed attack Stride. Reporters, at least some of whom must surely have been aware of Schwartz, sat through the several days of testimony and heard or read the coroner's findings, yet nowhere in print can I find anyone inquiring why he did not testify - not even the Star reporter who interviewed him! As senior Ripper experts Begg, Fido and Skinner point out in "A-Z," it would have been a criminal offense for police to withhold Schwartz's information from Coroner Baxter, so we must assume that Baxter knew about him. It was suggested that Schwartz may have testified in camera (privately), but if he did, we have found no record of it - and Mr. Baxter made no reference to it in his findings. And if Schwartz did testify in secret, why was it deemed important that his testimony be kept from the public?

Puzzled John