The perfect witness who won't testify

[lynn cates]

address

Hello Colin. Thanks. Very tempting--especially as Julius Lowenheim was described as German-American. But the location was given as Finsbury Square in the police report.

Cheers.
LC

[RivkahChaya]

Does "Christian" home imply that a Jew couldn't possibly seek help there? Or does it just seem ironic to you? Around here most faith-based charities don't ask you to sign a pledge or anything. In fact, there's a homeless shelter run by a church, in the town where I lived until a couple of years ago, and it was staffed by church volunteers. On Christmas an Easter, my synagogue did the volunteer staffing for them. The Salvation Army will help anyone. One of my (Jewish) best friends in college said her father made a yearly donation to them, because he got stranded without money once, back before cell phones and the internet, when that could happen more easily, and the Salvation Army bought him a bus ticket to his parents' house.

There are tons of soup kitchens (which in the US is a term for a place that serves free meals, intended for people homeless or in poverty-- they don't just serve soup), in New York, and even though a lot of them are faith-based, they are strategically placed-- you know, every so many blocks, concentrated in the poor areas of the city, rather than competitively, because they are trying to feed people, not earn converts. They don't quiz you on either your faith or your need. There are probably people who go there who could afford to feed themselves, as well as people who are entirely non-religious, but asking questions would scare away the people who really need the service.

That doesn't mean there aren't places that don't use need as a way to preach to people, but it isn't implied, just because something is church-run. In fact, in my experience, the places that are using need as a way to lure converts usually keep the fact quiet. It wouldn't be in the name, and they wouldn't hit you with it until you had both feet in the door.

[Errata]

Is it possible that when he said a Christian home, he meant the home of a Christian, perhaps a mutual friend of both parties? I think most people would be astonished at what happens in a "curbside consult" which is where you stop a doctor you know on the street or in the mall and start asking about a funny mole or whatever. I think 1 out of 5 outings that included my dad were interrupted at some point by someone wanting a medical opinion. And my dad was an OB/GYN, so don't think that didn't get awkward.

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this poor Lowenstein got cornered at a dinner party by someone wanting medical advice. It happens all the time.

Boundaries people, that's all I ask.

[Jason]

I was always under the impression that a headstone was placed a year after the death because that is the given time set down for a coffin and its occupants to settle in the earth and therefore when the headstone is set down, it is less likely to move after that point due to subsidence in the grave itself.......but then i again most of what i know has, certainly over time, been proven to be absolute tosh !! ....i am sure someone will correct me on this fact as well !!

[RivkahChaya]

Is it possible that when he said a Christian home, he meant the home of a Christian, perhaps a mutual friend of both parties? I think most people would be astonished at what happens in a "curbside consult" which is where you stop a doctor you know on the street or in the mall and start asking about a funny mole or whatever. ...
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if this poor Lowenstein got cornered at a dinner party by someone wanting medical advice. It happens all the time.

I know, right? I was an Army mechanic 15 years ago, and people stop me to ask what is wrong with their cars, and then describe the thing it's doing, or the noise it's making. Then, they want to know how serious it is, if the car will break down and leave them stranded, and how much it will cost to fix. The idea that costs vary greatly by make, model, and year, and further, that I do not keep a catalogue of such things in my head is a very hard concept for a surprising number of otherwise competent adults. Also, people have the idea that every single auto mechanic in the entire country is out to rip them off by lying to them about what is wrong with their car, and claiming it needs things it doesn't.

One guy I knew was sure a mechanic was trying to rip him off, because the sound his engine was making was coming from his water pump. The guy swore his car didn't have a water pump. I said, "So, it's air cooled, like a VW Beetle, or something?" He had no idea what I was talking about, but he told me what his car was, and it was something ubiquitous in the US, like a Chevy Cavalier. I told him it had a water pump. He said it didn't need one. I told him his engine would overheat without one. Then he told me, like he was talking to a child, that the same stuff that keeps the car from freezing in the winter, also cools it in the summer.

I told him he had that exactly backwards, and explained what "antifreeze" does, and that just because it is called a water pump, and not an antifreeze pump, his car still needs one.

He has regarded me with suspicion since that day.

I was always under the impression that a headstone was placed a year after the death because that is the given time set down for a coffin and its occupants to settle in the earth and therefore when the headstone is set down, it is less likely to move after that point due to subsidence in the grave itself.......but then i again most of what i know has, certainly over time, been proven to be absolute tosh !! ....i am sure someone will correct me on this fact as well !!

Do all people wait a year? I thought just Jews did. Anyway, the headstone isn't placed directly over the grave, it's placed at least a foot above where the head of the casket is. Otherwise, when graves had double stones, that were already there for one person, just waiting for the death date of the second person, you'd need to move the stone in order to dig the second grave, and I have been to funerals where that isn't necessary.

Also, modern cemeteries compress the ground mechanically over the grave after filling it in. They don't do it while the family is there, they do it later, then they lay topsoil, and sod, so within a few days, it doesn't look "fresh." I've seen it done, because in college, I was dating a guy who lived near an old cemetery, that had once been on the outside of town, but now was practically downtown, and I used to see this done once in a while.

[Wickerman]

Does "Christian" home imply that a Jew couldn't possibly seek help there?

Doesn't the name of a Home generally reflect the principal financier or benefactor for the Home, assuming it is not a profit making enterprise?
Like a Christian Home might be financed by some Christian Charity, perhaps.
Open to all I would think.

Regards, Jon S.

[lynn cates]

"Christian Home"

Hello Rivkah, Errata. "Christian Home" is in upper case and quotes, in the original police report. The report indicates they met there.

Cheers.
LC

[Fleetwood Mac]

It sounds like a strange story to me, because I wonder first what one person could have seen that all on its own made a compelling case, and without it, there was no case at all.

There must have been some sort of case. The alternative is that they plucked out Kosminski simply because he was Jewish and lived in the area, and by some freak of nature they plucked out the one person who could have been ID'd. That would have been an extraordinary slice of luck.

Clearly they had something, and this something was cemented by the ID.

As ever with murder investigations, there is always one factor that clinches it and in this case it was the witness's evidence.

What do other people think?

I think it's perfectly plausible.

There are some pieces of the jigsaw missing, but then there would be as no one sat down to record the event in great detail. I'm amazed that posters go on to turn this into a 'must have been confused' scenario.

The only thing that's not right about it is that Aaron Kosminski was dead - but then Swanson didn't write such a thing.

[Stephen Thomas]

"Christian Home" is in upper case and quotes, in the original police report. The report indicates they met there.

Hello Lynn

If it's not imposing on you too much, what does this report actually say?

[RivkahChaya]

...Clearly they had something, and this something was cemented by the ID.

As ever with murder investigations, there is always one factor that clinches it and in this case it was the witness's evidence.
...

There are some pieces of the jigsaw missing, but then there would be as no one sat down to record the event in great detail. I'm amazed that posters go on to turn this into a 'must have been confused' scenario.

My problem is, that the way it's phrased, it's not the last piece of the puzzle, it's the whole picture; it's not the cement that holds everything together, it's everything, period. No ID, no case whatsoever; positive ID? perfect case, slam-dunk conviction.

Now, maybe the problem is just the way later reporters (by reporter, I mean anyone repeating second-hand information; I don't just mean professional journalists) are stating it, and the witness's ID was never really the entire case, and the reason the witness wasn't pressed was not so much his reluctance, but the fact that Kosminski was already off the streets. But can you see how just stating it that way introduces legendary elements into it? It becomes the magic weapon that is just out of reach.

[lynn cates]

report

Hello Stephen. Your wish is my command, Effendi.

Below:

Copy A49301D
Dresden
11 December 1888
My Lord,
Regarding American German, Julius I. Lowenheim, came here this morning with a statement respecting the Whitechapel murders. He said that shortly before the occurrence of the first crime he became acquainted in a “Christian Home” in Finsbury Square, with a Polish Jew one Julius Wirtkofsky, who, after consul[ting] him on a special pathological con[dition] told him that he was determined to kill the person con[cerned 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]

Cheers.
LC

[Errata]

Well, I imagine there's one way to check. Does anyone know if Finlay square was residential or commercial?

[Tecs]

One example is the 200-mile carburetor. From about the 1920s, until fuel injection became standard, almost everyone "knew," somehow, that car manufacturers knew how to make a carburetor that would let a car get 200mpg (the best a carburetor even got was about 25mpg, and when the legend sprung up, it was more like 10mpg; for Brits, that's about 84 liters per kilometer, I think). The unnamed "car companies" wouldn't manufacture it, though, because they were being paid off not to, by the oil companies.

Hello all,

While I don't subscribe to conspiracy theories as a rule, I do believe that car manufacturers do make cars with too many gears. I know we have a lot of American people on the boards and I don't know how cars over there differ but here in the U.K. I drive 30,000 miles a year and only really use the odd gears ie 1st-3rd-5th. This sees me through almost every situation. Think about it, 1st will take you easily up to 20 mph, you can comfortably take 3rd at 20 which will take you up to 45mph and you can easily select 5th from 35-40 (or at least on my cars you can) People do seem to have a weird attitude to gears though, I heard a guy on the radio saying that he was done for speeding doing 40 in a 30 zone. His excuse was that his car chugs along and rattles if doing 30 in 5th gear. The idea of changing down didn't seem to occur to him. I also overheard a man on the radio enquiring whether going along doing 30 in 3rd gear would damage the car. And he was an ex driving instructor! (It won't)

So, if we don't need all those gears, surely they're not there to encourage people to rev up in 1st, rev up in 2nd etc and use more fuel? A manager of mine once said that my mpg figures were measurably better than anyone else in my team....


But to get to the point! Many people who consider themselves neither prejudiced nor patronising in fact are. I know some Christians who are very nice people but who are so convinced that they are right that they can't take on board other peoples opinion. They are not nasty, arrogant people they are just very, very focussed and comitted. So I can easily imagine Robert Anderson hearing about the guy who wouldn't testify and putting it down to his Jewishness. He may even have been corrected and told, "No Sir, it's because he just wasn't sure." But actually thought "No, it's because he was Jewish and didn't want to hang a fellow Jew. Whatever anyone says."

That would explain it wouldn't it?

regards,

[lynn cates]

Finsbury

Hello Errata. "Finsbury."

Cheers.
LC

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

In 1888 the YMCA was at 28 Finsbury Square.

Regards,

Simon