Can George Chapmam reform himself to being a calculating poisoner seven years later?.

[Garry Wroe]

I don't think the deep-rooted psychological make-up of any person changes much over time after he or she has reached adulthood, and I'd think whatever psychological urge lay at the root of the Ripper murders would be part of such make-up. It would have taken the Ripper his whole childhood and adolescence to develop the urge and I don't think it would easily change once he was an adult. But that's just my take on it. Perhaps someone like Garry Wroe can confirm or dispute this.

Apologies for the delayed response, Frank, but I’ve only just spotted your post.

In short, I would agree entirely with your view. Those elements to which we refer when speaking in terms of ‘personality’ are essentially fixed by the age of ten or twelve when the process of ‘brain set’ occurs. Prior to brain set, the brain assumes a somewhat spongy, malleable condition and is easily adapted to environmental learning requirements. Thus it’s not too difficult to teach a child a second or even a third language. With the onset of brain set, however, the brain undergoes a solidification process and becomes less adaptable to changes in environmental learning. Accordingly, if a child has never learned complex language prior to brain set, it can never do so afterwards. Individual words may be learned, but the sophisticated grammatical rules which govern complex language prove elusive.

Bearing this in mind, it may be stated with absolute certainty that the Whitechapel Murderer’s killing episodes were an expression of his core personality, and that the essential elements of this personality had developed during his first twelve or so years of life. Subsequent milestone events such as puberty and negative life experiences would also have been important. But it is the first ten or twelve years which are critically important in the development of the aberrant personality.

[Errata]

Thanks for coming back on that one!

Thing is, that the gentile Klosowski was apprenticed to the Jewish Rapaport for nearly five years isn't in dispute as there is documentary evidence.

Helena

Yeah, I believe that. There are about 100 ways that happens. The actual apprenticeship I have no issue with. It's the living with part of the apprenticeship that seems dicey. Like, it would make more sense if he was apprenticed to Rappaport who then got him a room over the stables at the inn. Or if he stayed at home if his family moved there, or lived with a family friend. I mean, I know that traditionally apprenticeship involves staying with one's master, but in the Pale in the mid 1800s that was SUCH a bad idea for all parties involved that I can't imagine why they wouldn't make other arrangements.

[Errata]

Sorry for my ignorance, Errata, but which German Christians are you referring to?

Heh. Klosowki, as in those from Klosow. So the Klosowskis started out in Klosow. Now since prior to WWII Klosow was a part of Germany, it would make any Klosowski a member of any of the varieties of German empires that have existed throughout history. And we know the Klosowskis were Christians because a: well they were and b: the saint names.

Which means the Klosowskis were German Christians (originally). Most people in the Pale who didn't have the abysmal luck to be there since the iron age were exiled there, from Russia and Germany. Jews exiled there to be precise. So what on earth would attract the Klosowski family, a Christian family of Germanic origin, to the Pale of all places? Especially since I can't think of a time when central Poland was more agreeable than Western Germany?

It's a transient thought. But I think these things sometimes.

Your dad is from Lublin? Yikes. Was he there during the war? Although it's none of my business and I realize people can be sensitive about these things.

[HelenaWojtczak]

I think that is the likely answer to why he had to go away to be apprenticed to a surgeon.

Chris

Wires crossed here a bit.

Because everything I have read assumes the Klosowski family stayed in Kolo while only Seweryn went to Zwolen, I didn't question that assumption. So my question was, why did they send him from Kolo to Zwolen, many hundreds of miles away, when there were a few big towns nearby, like Kalisz and Lodz.

However, once I allowed in the idea that the whole family moved, first to Kasienin, then to a village near Zwolen, it makes perfect sense that he was apprenticed to Rapaport (although it does leave us with the problem Errata has highlighted about Jews not being allowed to apprentice gentiles.)

[HelenaWojtczak]

The actual apprenticeship I have no issue with. It's the living with part of the apprenticeship that seems dicey. Like, it would make more sense if ... he stayed at home if his family moved there

Thank you Errata. It is probable that his parents moved near to Zwolen.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Errata wrote:

Klosowki, as in those from Klosow. So the Klosowskis started out in Klosow. Now since prior to WWII Klosow was a part of Germany, it would make any Klosowski a member of any of the varieties of German empires that have existed throughout history.


I disagree vehemently. Just because a bunch of invaders divide up a country (ie the Polish Partitions) and occupy it for a while before giving it back does not make the residents of the occupied sections change their ethnicity.

The Poles who lived in the sections occupied by Russia, or Germany, did not become Russian or German. They still considered themselves Poles, spoke Polish, kept their customs and their religion etc. Take for example my own family in Lublin. My aunts and uncle were born in a Polish town, had a Polish name, Polish customs, Polish food, Polish catholic religion. But, because Russia had taken over, technically, they were "Russian". My grandfather was even conscripted into the Russian army. Then in 1918 Poland got its independence again, and my father was born in 1922 into the same family, in the same house, yet he was a Pole. The only Pole in the family! Yet nobody would ever call my family Russian, or of Russian heritage or Russian extraction. Same thing was happening over in Kalisz, where my step-mother's family came from, except their area was taken over by Germany till 1918. But it didn't actually make them German.. Well, legally, by nationality, but not ethnically.

So, my dad and stepmother are like Seweryn and Lucy - one supposedly "Russian" and one supposedly "German" yet in reality both Polish.

I note that no JtR book or forum ever refers to Klosowski as a Russian. Yet technically, he was because his birthplace was under Russian occupation at the time.

Errata: Which means the Klosowskis were German Christians (originally).

Absolutely not. Klosow is a Polish town! The very word "Klosow" is a Polish word, and the ending "-ski" is a Polish ending.

Errata: "Your dad is from Lublin? Yikes. Was he there during the war? Although it's none of my business and I realize people can be sensitive about these things."

Yes, he and his family were engaged in smuggling food to the Jewish ghetto there. My 17-year-old father got caught in a forest hauling a consignment of food on a sledge, and only narrowly escaped death by agreeing to go "voluntarily" (haha) to a German work camp, where he was trained as a welder. However, they were starving all the Polish workers to death, my dad says he lost half his body weight, so he and a friend escaped, killed a German soldier and walked all the way to Switzerland, where they handed themselves in to the authorities, who handed them to the Polish army in St Blais, who trained them in Morse code and sent them to Egypt, then to Rome. He was demobbed in Britain in 1945. The Nazis killed my grandparents and uncle, but my two aunts survived the war. And no, they NEVER thought of themselves as Russian, no matter what their birth certificates say!

Apologies for going completely off topic, but she did ask!

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Helena

I agree entirely! To make an analogy a bit closer to home for most of us: Because Wales, Ireland, and Scotland were each occupied by the English did not make the Welsh, Irish, or Scottish into Englishmen, did it?

Chris

[Errata]

I disagree vehemently. Just because a bunch of invaders divide up a country (ie the Polish Partitions) and occupy it for a while before giving it back does not make the residents of the occupied sections change their ethnicity.

You are right of course. But Klosow is a weird case. Both of them really. The Northern one is in Pomerania, it's own Duchy. A princess of Pomerania spent some time in Queen Elizabeth's court. After that it was Swedish for a long time, then German. The southern Klosow was Bohemian, German, Prussian, etc.

And both towns spent a goodly portion of their history called Klossow, the German spelling.

I can't even imagine what kind of national identity crisis the residents of these border towns had to go through. But anyone from Klosow would be as German as they were Polish, or Jewish, or Walloon, or whatever. And neither Klosow was originally Polish, and even originally populated by Germanic tribes.

So in the end, I guess it's up to self identification. And is not germane to the matter at hand, since it's a genealogy thing. but that is the reason behind my thinking.

Thank your dad for me. My family was in that ghetto.

[HelenaWojtczak]

But anyone from Klosow would be as German as they were Polish

So in the end, I guess it's up to self identification.

Thank your dad for me. My family was in that ghetto.

On the first point, I don't think they would ever think of themselves as German. Your second point is spot on. What defines them is their home language, religion, surname, customs, history, folk culture, even food. These things preserve people's ethnicity despite all attempts to turn them into something else by invading and occupying them. Just look at how Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and all that crowd have emerged with their languages and culture intact despite being "buried" inside the USSR and referred to as Russia for the past half century.

Lastly, what an amazing coincidence! As a boy, my father used to work for a number of Jewish families in Lublin. Every Saturday he'd go from house to house lighting their fires for them, for a small remuneration, because they were not allowed to do so on the Sabbath. Maybe the friendliness and familiarity that grew out of that association was what prompted him to risk his life to help feed them. Incidentally, I was called "Helena" after the village my father lived in - "Helenow" - and where his father was manager of the brickworks.

I apologise again to everyone for the off-topic nature of my postings. I have made many attempts to start new threads but nobody has responded to any of them. At least on this one I am getting some kind of human feedback.

[FrankO]

Apologies for the delayed response, Frank, but I’ve only just spotted your post.

No need to apologize, Garry - thanks for your feedback and the extra information about the 'brain set'! Although the concept of 'brain set' sounds very logical, I wasn't familiar with it yet.

All the best,
Frank

[Garry Wroe]

My pleasure, Frank.

[HelenaWojtczak]

Returning to the topic....

Abberline, of course, was trained and working many years before psychological profiling told us that killers don't change their MO.

Are these profilers always right?

Has there ever been, in history, a serial killer who is known to have changed his MO?

Helena

[Errata]

Returning to the topic....

Abberline, of course, was trained and working many years before psychological profiling told us that killers don't change their MO.

Are these profilers always right?

Has there ever been, in history, a serial killer who is known to have changed his MO?

Helena

I suppose that depends on the exact definition of MO? Is it simply weapon choice or is it everything from victim selection to treatment of the corpse?

[HelenaWojtczak]

I suppose that depends on the exact definition of MO? Is it simply weapon choice or is it everything from victim selection to treatment of the corpse?

Well, for example, is there any case of a killer changing from a slasher to a poisoner?

[Errata]

Well, for example, is there any case of a killer changing from a slasher to a poisoner?

The Zodiac used a knife on some of his victims, and guns on others. I think he may have beaten someone to death as well. But the tool was really the only difference. Everything else was the same.