The Five

 

To begin, I’m not a True Crime fan. Far from it. I can think of innumerable pursuits more palatable than consuming a steady diet of the misery of others.

That said, I am a fan of history. What’s more, I have a desire to understand, in as much as it is possible to do so, the subtext of the literature of its time, be it fiction or non-fiction. Nothing exists in a bubble. It goes without saying that Jack the Ripper was foremost in peoples’ minds in the autumn of 1888.

How could they not have been? The Whitechapel Murders were splashed across every newspaper in London as Jack terrorised that now famous district. Regardless that terror, not everyone residing there could escape it: Where might the poor go, one could ask? Poverty limited their choices. They must live where they could afford to, even if they could afford to live nowhere at all.

Which brings us to the “canonical five.” Five hapless women fell to Jack’s gruesome pursuit, becoming the stuff of legend. Jack might be more famous, but let’s face facts: even to this day, we know little, if anything, about history’s most famous serial killer. We know a great deal more about those five women who were his victims, perhaps more now than we did then.

Which brings me to Hallie Rubenhold’s 2019 study of Jack’s victims. Her book, The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper, is not another exploration of the Whitechapel Murders (there are quite a few of those already); it is a forensic dissertation on the lives of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly, insofar as she was able to piece together as accurate a biography of each as is possible, given how little might be known about any woman in the latter Victorian era.

National Police Gazette illustration, 1889

Let’s be clear: this is not a book about the murders. They are biographies, from birth until their last sightings. There are brief afterwards, where their next of kin, or closest acquaintances, identified the bodies. But there is no speculation as to how each met their end; no imaginings on how Jack stalked then, approached them, whether they were even aware of his very presence. Any such scenes would be pure fiction; and Ms. Rubenhold had no desire to pile on more speculation than already has been. Ms. Rubenhold had one goal, to give these women the fair trial they deserved when they passed, and not the derision they received in the court of public opinion.

In short, each was painted a prostitute. They were not, most likely. Only two of the five can concretely be proven to have engaged in sex work, ad only one was what one might officially be called a bonified prostitute. The others were only guilty of misfortune and, in some cases, addiction. Each began what one might call a promising life. And it was only by circumstance that they found themselves living a life of poverty in one of the worst slums in London at then time.

Each led an interesting life, each unique from the others. Thus, each biography does not cover the same ground. Mary Ann married, had children, and likely found herself on the street owing to her husband’s infidelity, regardless his citing her alcoholism as the reason for their estrangement. Annie was the daughter of a soldier, married a coachman, and was not a member of the labouring class, but she too had a weakness for alcohol, which became her undoing. Elizabeth was not English, but Swedish, a “fallen” woman who had to emigrate to escape a life of judgemental scrutiny, having contracted venereal disease (likely contracted from her employer, not that she could ever have accused him of that). She most certainly suffered from mental issues at the time of her death due to syphilis. Catherine was a free spirit: a bit of a gypsy, a busker, and a bit of a con artist. Little, if anything, is known of Mary Jane. That was probably not her real name. She told everyone she knew a different origin story. She was one a posh call girl. But after being betrayed by her madam, she found herself in ever diminishing prospects.

They had, for the most part, little in common. Poverty, at the time of their death, is the only thing that bound them as a group. Alcohol was prevalent. “Sleeping rough” (on the street, under the stars), on occasion, was also shared (except Mary Jane), when they could not scape together the few pence needed for a bed, when the workhouse was filled to capacity. Why then did Jack targeted them? One wonders.

Ms. Rubenhold could have added more material to this work; she might have included those other victims who are not canonically considered Jack’s victims; she might have detailed Emma Elizabeth Smith’s life, so too Martha Tabram’s, and Rose Mylett’s, and Alice McKenzie’s, and Francis Cole’s. They may very well have been Jack’s victims. But thy were not officially linked with Jack. So, she limited herself to those famous five.

Dorset Street, Spitalfields, London, 1902

What I found most interesting was how Ms. Rubenhold drew on not just these women’s lives, as records illuminate, but also censuses, and other sources, both contemporary histories and historical ones, giving us a more detailed picture of what life was like for labouring classes, for household servants, for soldiers and coachmen and tinplate artisans, what life was like in debtors’ prisons and workhouses, and indeed, what it was like for those who had little choice but to find shelter under eaves and alongside the sewage flowing in the gutter.

The Five has found its way onto many lists detailing the best Ripper books. Most concern themselves on the actual murders and the investigation, I imagine. I can’t say for certain if that is the case. Few, I believe, concern themselves with the actual lives of the victims, except in the most cursory fashion. This one does. And thus, Mr. Rubenhold’s book may be the only one to fill in thos glaring gaps the others leave wanting.

It's not a literary work. I was not swept off my feet by her mastery of poetic prose. She is not lacking in skill, either. All in all, it is a good dissertation, which is, what I expect, what she was aiming for.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

 

I have to wonder of this was a prophetic read, however old this book may be. That sounds bleak, doesn’t it. And polarising, depending on your politics. I have hopes, though, that things are not as they were in 1934; and that the panic I sometimes feel, when consuming 24-hour diatribes on our “news” networks, is merely a natural reaction to their bid for Neilson ratings, and not the imminent rise of the end of days. That is neither here nor there, here.

What’s germane here is my sense of accomplishment at having finally read this brick that has loomed over my bookshelves for many a year, William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. When I say year, I mean decades. I mean that literally. I bought this tome back in the Eighties, and after a rather lackluster first stab at its nearly 1500 pages of fairly fine print (my attention span was, shall we say, shorter then), I set it aside for lighter reading, daunted by its heft, believing that it would take as many months to complete as that long ago war waged. Little did I know how long it would remain perched on my shelves. Indeed, it would remain on those shelves even after a move, even after those selves were upgraded to larger, loftier, units. Before long, I wondered if I ever would read it cover-to-cover; always telling myself… someday….

One day, rather recently (in relation to the length of my not-too-short life), in a lock-down, far, far away, I decided, I would finally give Shirer’s epic history its long-awaited go. And give it a go I did. This is not to say I succeeded. I did manage far more pages than I did in that first attempt, but I did not plow through Rise and Fall… as I had intended. I did not fail, entirely, though. I managed to not set Shirer’s history back on the shelf, merely burying it under “more pressing” volumes on my end table. After a time, I picked it up again, sure that this time was indeed the time I would riffle through it. This time, I decided, I would not fail; that I would have a strategy: I would read ten pages a day, every day, whilst I read other books. I succeeded in this. And before long, as I watched my bookmark inch along the spine, those 10 pages grew to 20. And, before I knew it (not as quickly as this sounds, however), I found myself very near the end. And then, finally, I did come to the end. I felt like I’d scaled the Matterhorn!

Was it worth it? Yes. Very much so! It’s a remarkable work, as detailed and as insightful as only someone who lived through those dark days could expound.

It is dated, though. It’s a work of its time: a top-down history. Today, most histories are bottom-up. What’s the difference? Top-down is fact and event oriented. It may contain excerpts from letters and diaries, but only insofar as those entries add detail to the events related. Bottom-up is far more personal. More immersion. Letters and diaries entries are integral to giving the reader what feels like firsthand experience to the events as they unfold. A great many bottom-up histories will follow only a few “diarists,” so as to give the most dramatic experience possible, allowing the reader to empathise with those living through the events related. Shirer, however, has no wish for us to empathise with his diarists. His were the generals and the architects of the Third Reich. Even hapless conspirators who professed to end Hitler’s reign, if doing nothing. Or failing. His intent is to unveil that heinous regime in all its horror, for what it was, and not, in any way, apologise for their actions. He does that with great skill.

I will not detail the events within this weighty tome. Most people alive are already well acquainted with the events of the Second World War and all its horrors. Or should I say, I hope they are. I do wonder, at times, though. If they are not, I would wish this book were required reading. For everyone. It is still, I believe, one of the best histories of the War. But it is Reich-sentric. Let’s be clear about that. What happens outside Germany is merely mentioned, only insofar as it is relevant to what is unfolding within the Reich. Thus, the United States does not loom large here; indeed, it is barely mentioned until it begins its convoys to beleaguered Britain. Britain and the Soviet Union are far larger players in the Reich’s narrative; probably because they were of greater concern to Nazi Germany than even it's allies, Mussolini’s Italy, and Imperial Japan (which hardly factors in, at all). What is of greatest weight is Shirer’s firsthand accounts: He was an American journalist within the Reich, until he had to exit from there upon America’s entrance in the war. His “Berlin Diary” is as important to this work as it is in its own right; as is his having reported on the Nuremberg Trials. It was these writings that allowed this work to be as personal as it is. And as insightful. No one else (then, anyway) could have given us the book he did.

I obviously recommend this book, however daunting it may appear; but if the reader is not well versed with the overall history of WW2, I would recommend they look elsewhere first, overarching documentaries, perhaps, before diving in.

So, why would I say this book is prophetic? Because, to my mind, anyway, there are worrisome parallels today around the world to those early days before Weimar Germany became Nazi Germany. Is it just fearmongering? Is it that we, as humans, find patterns everywhere, even if there are none? Perhaps. I do hope, though, that no country finds itself travelling down the road of autocratic totalitarianism ever again. Or that anyone should ever have to experience such horrors as the people then did. Or those who do now do.

Not to belabour the point, but,

“No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.” ― William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

Regardless my polemic, William Shirer’s spic history is likely one of the most important contemporary histories ever written, I would wish that everyone read it.