Aaron Kosminski
| Aaron Kosminski | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Aron Mordke Kozmiński 11 September 1865 Kłodawa, Congress Poland, Russian Empire |
| Died | 24 March 1919 (aged 53) London, England |
| Known for | Jack the Ripper suspect |
Aaron Kosminski (born Aron Mordke Kozmiński; 11 September 1865 – 24 March 1919) was a Jewish Polish emigrant in England who is a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.
Kosminski was a Polish Jew who emigrated from Russian Poland to England in the 1880s. He worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel in the East End of London, where a series of murders ascribed to the Ripper were committed in 1888. From 1891, he was institutionalised in an insane asylum.
Police officials from the time of the murders named one of their suspects as "Kosminski" (the forename was not given), and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum. Almost a century after the final murder, the suspect "Kosminski" was identified as Aaron Kosminski; but there was little if any evidence to connect Aaron Kosminski with the same Kosminski who was suspected of the murders and their dates of death are different. Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age named Aaron or David Cohen (real name possibly Nathan Kaminsky), who was a violent patient at the same asylum.
In September 2014, author Russell Edwards claimed to have proved Kosminski's guilt using evidence from a shawl he believed to have been left at a murder scene. His claim has not been published or verified by the peer-review process, and his methods and findings have been criticised.
Aaron Kosminski was born in Kłodawa in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire. His parents were Abram Józef Kozmiński, a tailor, and his wife Golda née Lubnowska. He may have been employed in a hospital as a hairdresser or orderly for a time. Aaron emigrated from Poland in 1880 or 1881, likely with his sisters' families. The family initially lived in Germany for a while. A nephew of Aaron's was born there in 1880 and a niece in 1881. It is not known precisely when Aaron left Poland to join his sisters or whether he lived in Germany for any length of time, although he may have left Poland as a result of the March 1881 pogroms following the assassination of Tzar Alexander II, the impetus for many other Jews to emigrate. The family moved to Britain and settled in London sometime in 1881 or 1882. His mother, who was listed as a widow, apparently did not emigrate with the family immediately, but had joined them by 1894. It is unknown whether his father died or abandoned the family, but he did not emigrate to Britain with the rest of them. It is known that he had likely died before 1901, and an 1887 death certificate indicates that an Abram Kosminski had died in the Polish town of Koło, only five miles from Grzegorzew, the hometown of Kosminski's father.
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