How Should the Victims Be Remembered?

[AlfredFJones]

How should these women be remembered?!
` I'm writing an essay about how these unforunate ladies are depicted or respected, or disrespected for that matter. For instance, the vandalism of Mary Kelly's grave.

[kensei]

I visited Mary Kelly's grave about seven months ago while on vacation from America. I'm sure there has been vandalism from time to time, and I've also heard of people leaving gin bottles there as something she would have enjoyed in life. But when I was there in September, the abundance of flowers, candles, crosses etc. people had left made for quite an emotional moment and there was no defacing or littering to be found at that time. (There was however a handful of coins someone had left, which is a little disturbing when you think about it.) I spotted the grave due to its being the only splash of color in an otherwise green and gray area.

I think Mary and the others should be remembered as women born into humble circumstances who had the odds stacked against them, did the best they could, knew both successes and failures in their lives, and happened to meet terrible ends at a time when life had beaten them down and they had made certain unfortunate choices out of desperation. There but for the grace of the gods go any of us.

[richardnunweek]

Hi,
All the victims of 'Jack' are being remembered, daily on Casebook, and JTR Forums, their existance will never be forgotten as long as this subject is discussed.
In all my years with this subject, i have only visited Mary Kellys grave once, that was when Leanne Parry and myself had started a book on the subject[ although i pulled out of the project later] and i placed a lovely bunch of flowers from the two of us on her grave.
As Kensei sad they had very difficult lives, that are distant from our own, we simply cannot imagine what nineteenth century east end of London was really like, even those who are experts on that period would proberly be surprised if they could be carted back to then.
Regards Richard.

[John Bennett]

I believe plans are afoot to erect a monument to the Whitechapel victims, possibly in Itchy Park. It was mentioned in the last WS1888 journal.

What form that monument would take is still to be decided, I think.

[Nurse Sarah]

Victims graves

I have just returned from London and visited four out of the 5 victims graves, all had flowers on apart from Eddowes, of which I placed my own flower on.

Kellys was most certainly the 'busiest', with flowers, crosses, coins, a gin bottle half full with gin and a shooter glass, a small cuddly toy with Canada sewn on it and a plate with Mary and Jesus on it.

The other graves had plastic flowers on them, none showed any signs of vandalism...they are pretty hard to locate aswell as being low key, there are only names on the stones, some have dates...so they dont stick out in any way really.


In a way they are lucky to have their own head stone, many poor people who were buried in the mass common grave will never have the luxury...

[Jon Guy]

I believe plans are afoot to erect a monument to the Whitechapel victims, possibly in Itchy Park. It was mentioned in the last WS1888 journal.
What form that monument would take is still to be decided, I think.

I was thinking that an appropiate memorial could be a bench with seated figures upon it, representing those described below by Jack London as he walked through the park. It would interesting to see this bench amongst the other benches ( are there any in there nowadays ?) with real people sitting alongside them. The description of the family I have highlighted would be a fitting tribute to the history of the area ? :

"We went up the narrow gravelled walk. On the benches on either side was arrayed a mass of miserable and distorted humanity, the sight of which would have impelled Dore to more diabolical flights of fancy than he ever succeeded in achieving. It was a welter of rags and filth, of all manner of loathsome skin diseases, open sores, bruises, grossness, indecency, leering monstrosities, and bestial faces. A chill, raw wind was blowing, and these creatures huddled there in their rags, sleeping for the most part, or trying to sleep. Here were a dozen women, ranging in age from twenty years to seventy. Next a babe, possibly of nine months, lying asleep, flat on the hard bench, with neither pillow nor covering, nor with any one looking after it. Next, half a dozen men, sleeping bolt upright or leaning against one another in their sleep. In one place a family group, a child asleep in its sleeping mother's arms, and the husband (or male mate) clumsily mending a dilapidated shoe. On another bench a woman trimming the frayed strips of her rags with a knife, and another woman, with thread and needle, sewing up rents. Adjoining, a man holding a sleeping woman in his arms. Farther on, a man, his clothing caked with gutter mud, asleep with head in the lap of a woman, not more than twenty-five years old, and also asleep".

[Ally]

The question is not how they should be remembered, but why should they be remembered at all. Last year in the UK alone there were over a hundred and fifty homicides. Where is the memorial for these victims? Where is the concern with how those victims, victims who were living and breathing in our own lifetimes who had a chance to actually impact and interact with us, where is the concern for how they are remembered? Where is the push to have them remembered at all.

Five single lives out of the millions of lives that are destroyed globally in wars, genocide, and just basic homicide; what precisely is it about these women that is so special that out of all those other millions of lives lost, these women should be honored above all or especially remembered?

Those of us who study the case don't wish to be disrespectful of the fact that these women were murdered to provide us with our entertainment, and that tends to translate into a veneration of them that is beyond reason, but for the wider world at large, there is absolutely no reason why these women should be remembered.

[DVV]

Yes, Ally,
everybody kills everybody...people are murdered daily, and victims and killers are ignored or forgotten.
But since the name of JtR is so famous, that's just fair to remember his victims. That's what we're doing here.
The idea of a memorial is ridiculous to me, though.

Amitiés,
David

[Ally]

Peter Sutcliffe is famous in the UK. Where is his victims memorial or push to have them honored. What about Ted Bundy's victims? Boston Strangler? Harold Shipman? BTK killer?

Where's the push for the memorial and the honoring and the veneration for those victims? Their killers are equally famous. In fact I'd wager that the vast majority of people would know more about BTK or Peter Sutcliffe at this point than Jack simply because he is more recent. Jack is history, and except for those who study such things, not really in the current mindset.

[DVV]

Peter Sutcliffe is famous in the UK. Where is his victims memorial or push to have them honored. What about Ted Bundy's victims? Boston Strangler? Harold Shipman? BTK killer?

That's exactly why the idea of a memorial seems to me ridiculous.

Amitiés,
David

[Jon Guy]

Hello

I believe it is because the area was notorious, before and after Jack, which wasn`t the case with Bundy, Sutcliffe and the rest of them. The murders, and therefore the victims, captured the imagination and shocked respectable Britain who didn`t realise that parts of London were that bad. They have come to represent everyone who struggled alongside them.If done well there needn`t be any mention or link to Jack other than Victorian Spitalfields.

A memorial to these people in a place like the gardens of the Spitalfields Church, a place that has not changed in a fast developing area would be a memory of the polar society that once lived there.

Besides, on a personal level I enjoy art and if it`s done well, at the very least, it would be pleasing to look at, whatever it`s reason to be there.

[AlfredFJones]

Thanks for replying, everyone. I found your responses both informative and intriguing...


It's interesting to see that many people are discussing about a memorial for the victims. While I would be in support if any such memorial was put up, or even simply one dedicated to the memory of all murdered victims of the world, I actually meant something else when I asked, "How should the victims be remembered?"

Remembering the argument GuildfordGhost and myself had (on youtube) with someone who was claiming that, because these women were prostitutes, they deserved what they got. That they were the sinners and other such nonsense.

I believe that the victims deserve better respect than what this unpleasant commentator had to say.
The "blame the victims" tendency needs to cease.

[Ally]

Why should their occupations matter one way or the other. If people shouldn't blame them for being prostitutes, it doesn't necessarily follow that they should be venerated because they were prostitutes. But it appears that there is a knee-jerk reaction in that direction. We don't want to be viewed as saying they "deserved it because they were prostitutes" so we go overboard in attempting to honor them, when in fact, even if we take prostitution totally out of the picture, these weren't precisely women worthy of being honored. They were thieves and drunks and women whose own children wanted nothing to do with them. The facts we know about their personal lives, regardless of prostitution, does not paint them in a flattering light. Not exactly women I would want to build a memorial to for their lives. But because they were murdered, no different than millions and millions of others, suddenly, they are now worthy of being immortalized? Which means we are memorializing them not for their lives, but for their deaths. Which means there must be something extraordinary about their deaths to make it worth a memorial or remembering.

These women weren't willing martyrs. If they had all walked out on the street at high noon and deliberately slit their own throats to call attention to the plight of the East End, that might be something worthy of being honored, but just being a victim isn't precisely an honor-worthy thing. They didn't sacrifice themselves to save another. There is nothing remarkable about their deaths at all except they were murdered, like millions before and after them. So really, what's to especially remember?

[AlfredFJones]

Thank you for replying, Ally.
While, yes, the women weren't perfect, the point is that nobody deserves to die a horrible death.

[Ally]

Hardly anyone deserves to die a horrible death. But this thread is about picking these five women out of the millions and millions who have died horrible deaths and honoring them in ways that are not bestowed upon other victims who also didn't deserve to die horrible deaths.

No one deserves it, so why pick these five especially as being deserving of a memorial?