Aaron Kosminski

Who was Aaron Kosminski?

Aaron Kosminski was an insane Polish Jew who was a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders. He emigrated to England from Poland in the 1880s and worked as a hairdresser in Whitechapel in the East End of London, where the murders were committed in 1888. From 1891, he was institutionalized in an asylum.

Police officials at the time of the murders named one of their suspects "Kosminski", and described him as a Polish Jew in an insane asylum. Almost a century after the final murder, the suspect "Kosminski" was identified with Aaron Kosminski, but there was little if any evidence to connect him with the murders, and the reasons for his inclusion as a suspect are unclear. Possibly, Kosminski was confused with another Polish Jew of the same age named Aaron or David Cohen, who was a violent patient at the same asylum.