Speaker 1: Pushkin. Benjamin Marshall is working alone in the wreckage of
Speaker 1: Vauxhall Baptist Chapel. This area of South London was badly
Speaker 1: bombed earlier in the Blitz, and the church is now unusable.
Speaker 1: A strange fire had then caused further damage, and now
Speaker 1: Marshall is part of the demolition squad tasked with clearing
Speaker 1: the charred debris. The July heat is already building, but
Speaker 1: the fifty year old continues shoveling dirt and rubble in
Speaker 1: this airless basement. Spotting a stone slab leaning up against
Speaker 1: a wall, Marshall decides to move it. I was mesmerized.
Speaker 1: Beneath the slab is the body of a naked dismembered incomplete.
Speaker 1: Marshall carefully lifts these pitiful human remains with his shovel
Speaker 1: and calls out to his former. It's been decades since
Speaker 1: the last burial here, and this corpse doesn't appear to
Speaker 1: have come from a disturbed grave. Could it then be
Speaker 1: the body of a victim of the blitz, killed in
Speaker 1: the air aid that blasted the chapel and lain undiscovered
Speaker 1: ever since. That's the conclusion. The woman's killer seems to
Speaker 1: have hoped people would draw. In the chaos and carnage
Speaker 1: of war. Some men assume their crimes will go undetected
Speaker 1: and unpunished. But looking at the mutilated form of this woman,
Speaker 1: it's clear that this is not the work of a bomb.
Speaker 1: The efforts made to disfigure her and disguise her identity
Speaker 1: tell police immediately. But this was murder. This is the
Speaker 1: seldom told story of women in World War Two who
Speaker 1: were killed not by the enemy, but my husbands, lovers,
Speaker 1: and strangers, wearing the uniform of their own side. It's
Speaker 1: also the tale of a particular string of murder victims
Speaker 1: that history has swept from view. I'm Hallie Rubinhold, and
Speaker 1: I'm Alice Fines, and you're listening to bad Women the
Speaker 1: Blackout River. Polly Dubinski is not the first to come
Speaker 1: to this little brick house in London's gritty East End
Speaker 1: in search of answers. Madame Nerva is expecting her. Did
Speaker 1: you bring what I need? Polly holds out a scarf
Speaker 1: and sweater they belonged to her sister, Rachel Dobkin, who's
Speaker 1: been missing for three days. The clairvoyant usher's Polly inside
Speaker 1: and then takes hold of these items of clothing. They
Speaker 1: will be key to her work, for she practices psychometry.
Speaker 1: She claims that she can read these objects and thereby
Speaker 1: untangle the mystery of Rachel's disappearance. Polly had come to
Speaker 1: seventeen Underwood Road the day before frantically seeking help, but
Speaker 1: Hilda Nerva had been too busy cooking Sunday dinner to
Speaker 1: go into a psychic trance. Today, however, she is ready.
Speaker 1: Perhaps her breathing now grows deep and labored, for she
Speaker 1: is communing with another world. I see her fairly in
Speaker 1: the countryside. I see missus Dobkin, and she looks said.
Speaker 1: Then Madame Nerva feels a blow to her head and
Speaker 1: a choking sensation, as though something is tightening about her throat, squeezing, crushing. Oh,
Speaker 1: she gasps for air. Oh yeah. The vision is clearly
Speaker 1: not a hopeful one. But Madame Nerva isn't working totally blind.
Speaker 1: She knows the missing woman well. Rachel Dobkin is convinced
Speaker 1: of the psychic's powers, and she calls her home regularly.
Speaker 1: In fact, Rachel came here just days ago, asking Madame
Speaker 1: Nerva to read a piece of her jewelry. She was
Speaker 1: meeting the man who gave it to her, and she
Speaker 1: wanted advice. Sensing great sorrow in the gold band, the
Speaker 1: clairvoyant warned Rachel of grave danger. Will you promise me
Speaker 1: you won't go. Rachel pledged that she would not see
Speaker 1: the man. This isn't a story about the black Out Ripper,
Speaker 1: to which we'll return next episode. Rachel Dobkin wasn't in
Speaker 1: the habit of frequenting West End nightclubs, but she faced
Speaker 1: a danger no less. Chilling in Madame Nerva's hand was
Speaker 1: her wedding ring, and the man she'd promised to avoid
Speaker 1: was her own husband. In the spring of eighteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Russia's Czar Alexander the Second was returning from a military
Speaker 1: parade to the Winter Palace, taking his customary route, when
Speaker 1: revolutionaries at the roadside threw a bomb under his carriage.
Speaker 1: The Russian monarchs down, seeming unhurt, only for a second
Speaker 1: explosion to tear through the Royal Party and its bodyguards.
Speaker 1: The assassinations sparked a series of vicious anti Jewish riots.
Speaker 1: Pilgrims the Christians attacked the houses and shops of the
Speaker 1: Jews indiscriminately by smashing doors and breaking windows. Only one
Speaker 1: of the ten convicted plotters was actually Jewish, but the
Speaker 1: Jewish people as a whole were blamed. They were made
Speaker 1: to pay with their businesses and homes and in blood.
Speaker 1: One hundred houses were pinaged, a quantity of furniture being
Speaker 1: thrown out into the street. Two hundred people were injured
Speaker 1: during the riots. Rachel Dobkins' parents, Barnet and Sarah Dubinsky,
Speaker 1: were in the eye of the storm. Their province in
Speaker 1: what is now Ukraine, saw brutal violence, and in the
Speaker 1: decade that followed, the only grew worse. Imperial Russia imposed
Speaker 1: both petty restrictions and at serious hardships on the Jewish population.
Speaker 1: For example, businesses could refuse to employ Jews, so many
Speaker 1: eked out a poultry living in the poorest paying trades.
Speaker 1: Given the violence and economic hardships, it's little wonder that
Speaker 1: by eighteen ninety two, Barnett and Sarah had joined the
Speaker 1: millions of Jews seeking a new life abroad. The refugees
Speaker 1: traveled overland, at first, mostly boarding and disembarking steam locomotives
Speaker 1: that puffed and shrieked their way west. At the German frontier,
Speaker 1: some travelers were packed onto special sealed trains. Fearing the
Speaker 1: polluting influence of the migrant Jewish durch Underer, the Prussian
Speaker 1: authorities sought to limit their contact with the German population
Speaker 1: and dissuade them from settled. Conditions on the journey could
Speaker 1: be abominable. Travelers were treated like prisoners and deprived of
Speaker 1: access to adequate food and water. It was very hot
Speaker 1: and close and altogether uncomfortable, said one voyager. I cannot
Speaker 1: see even now how the officers could allow such a thing.
Speaker 1: It was really dangerous. But eventually the travelers would have
Speaker 1: reached Germany's coast, where the train doors would have opened.
Speaker 1: Sarah and Barnett would then have bordered a steamship to
Speaker 1: cross the North Sea to Britain. When Barnett and Sarah
Speaker 1: arrived in London, they settled in the already bustling Jewish
Speaker 1: community of Whitechapel. According to social researcher Charles Booth, some
Speaker 1: ninety percent of London's Jewish population resided in the city's
Speaker 1: grim East End, and Yiddish was spoken on the streets.
Speaker 1: The quarter was also a reputed sink of misery and degeneracy.
Speaker 1: Saw you filthy? Overcrowded and stinking of rot and refuse.
Speaker 1: Whitechapel was also notorious for the recent string of savage
Speaker 1: murders that had been perpetrated on its dingy narrow streets.
Speaker 1: In the time since Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride,
Speaker 1: Kate Edos and Mary jen Kelly had been killed here,
Speaker 1: some of the most depressing slums had been cleared and
Speaker 1: change was under way, but the East End remained of
Speaker 1: grave concern to politicians and reformers. Studying the Jewish community
Speaker 1: in particular, Charles Booth noted that these immigrants formed a
Speaker 1: permanent layer of poverty, verging on destitution. East End Jews
Speaker 1: worked in trades such as tailoring and boot making, but
Speaker 1: regular employment was hard to come by, and many of
Speaker 1: those who labored in the garment industry, like catmaker Barnet,
Speaker 1: carried out work at home, were toiled and cramped workshops
Speaker 1: under terrible conditions and for little pay. The medical journal
Speaker 1: The Lancet investigated the condition of Jewish tailors in the
Speaker 1: East End of London. Its findings carried antisemitic overtones, attitudes
Speaker 1: not uncommon at the time. Our commissioners found them working
Speaker 1: in unwholesome overcrowded houses. Such people were wanting in even
Speaker 1: the more elementary habits of cleanliness, which are possessed by
Speaker 1: the poorest of English people. The Dubinskis themselves lived in
Speaker 1: a house where home life and work life melded. The
Speaker 1: building was divided into tailoring workshops. It was here, in
Speaker 1: August eighteen ninety two, amid rolls of cloth and spindles
Speaker 1: of thread, that Sarah gave birth to a baby girl.
Speaker 1: For Jewish women newly arrived in a foreign land and
Speaker 1: separated from the support of their families, childbirth could be
Speaker 1: a lonely and frightening experience. Sarah might have been attended
Speaker 1: by a bobber or a handywoman, a local not formally
Speaker 1: trained in midwiffery, but who would have been trusted by
Speaker 1: the community. Nonetheless, the couple named their new arrival Rachel.
Speaker 1: More Dabinski children followed, and by the time she was nine,
Speaker 1: Rachel had four younger siblings. Although some decried the standards
Speaker 1: of sanitation and in in Jewish homes, others remarked that the
Speaker 1: children of Jewish immigrants were generally in better health than
Speaker 1: their gentile counterparts. One schoolboard president thought that the improved
Speaker 1: morality of Jewish parents and the care which their religion
Speaker 1: demanded as to food was largely the cause of their
Speaker 1: superiority over English children. The disease Ricketts, which left many
Speaker 1: working class children with weak and deformed bones, was less
Speaker 1: common in Jewish homes. Medical experts suggested that this was
Speaker 1: because of diet. Jewish women often banded together to bulk
Speaker 1: by fish at the local market, herring in particular, a
Speaker 1: source of protein and bone strengthening vitamin D. Other observers
Speaker 1: noted the self sacrificing care and devotion that Jewish parents
Speaker 1: showed to their children, but illness could still devastate family life.
Speaker 1: In April nineteen oh one, baby Hannah Dubinski contracted whooping cough.
Speaker 1: The sound of her gasping breath would have rung through
Speaker 1: their cramped dwelling. Starved of oxygen, her tiny body would
Speaker 1: have at first convulsed and then fallen still as her
Speaker 1: rattling breaths ceased. All together, Immigrant fortunes could rise and fall.
Speaker 1: A worker might switch back and forth between the roles
Speaker 1: of employee and employer over a lifetime. Flush one year,
Speaker 1: bankrupt the next, but despite the hardships and tragedies they suffered.
Speaker 1: The Dubinski family moved on the whole upwards. They were
Speaker 1: among the deserving pool granted a home in the Leyland Buildings,
Speaker 1: a new housing development that had risen on the ruins
Speaker 1: of an infamous slum. The red brick tenement complex radiated
Speaker 1: out from a central park and was intended to accommodate policemen, nurses, teachers,
Speaker 1: and other workers of good moral character. They were even shot,
Speaker 1: schools and laundries on site. The Dubinskys and their lodger,
Speaker 1: Abram Vogel, took up residence in three rooms. Their quarters
Speaker 1: would have been compact for seven people, to say the least,
Speaker 1: but they would all the same have felt pleased with
Speaker 1: their new home. Rachel grew into a petite young woman
Speaker 1: with dark hair and a thoughtful, arresting gaze. She was
Speaker 1: quiet and anxious on occasion. By eighteen, she was working
Speaker 1: in the cat making trade, most likely alongside her father. Then,
Speaker 1: when she was twenty eight years old, she was introduced
Speaker 1: to Harry Dobkin. This match was arranged through a Jewish
Speaker 1: marriage broker. As summer turned to autumn in nineteen twenty,
Speaker 1: Rachel and Harry wedd at bethnal Green Great Synagogue. The
Speaker 1: place is perfectly good. I don't see what's wrong with it.
Speaker 1: I can't do anything more. Their union, however, was not
Speaker 1: a happy one. According to Harry, the couple argued bitterly
Speaker 1: from the start. I quarreled with my wife over the
Speaker 1: inconvenience of the lodgings we were in and told her
Speaker 1: I had rooms were week ago. She refused to go
Speaker 1: there on our left. The marriage has been a failure
Speaker 1: from the outset. This separation came just three days after
Speaker 1: their nuptials. Historian doctor Ginger Frost doubts that disagreements about
Speaker 1: accommodation alone would have caused such a split. That's really fast.
Speaker 1: There's something they're not saying about what happened there is
Speaker 1: what I thought. I don't know what it was, but
Speaker 1: something that bad within a few days could have been
Speaker 1: sexual incompatibility. Maybe there was just instant dislike that's possible.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Harry Dobkin was violent in those first few days.
Speaker 1: Perhaps two sex was an unpleasant, even traumatic experience for
Speaker 1: rachel Girls and young women generally received little by way
Speaker 1: of sex education, to the point that a pregnant woman
Speaker 1: might have no idea how the baby growing inside her
Speaker 1: would actually leave her body. Harry was gone, but the
Speaker 1: couple had been together long enough for Rachel to conceive
Speaker 1: a child nine months after they wed and then separated.
Speaker 1: Baby Stanley was born at the City of London Maternity
Speaker 1: Hospital under the eye of medical professionals. Such care was
Speaker 1: a luxury beyond the means of many women, so when
Speaker 1: Rachel was admitted, it was probably through a charitable scheme.
Speaker 1: Single women who are sufficiently recommended, said the hospital rules,
Speaker 1: and are found to be deserving of the benefits of
Speaker 1: the hospital's charity, will be eligible for admission for their
Speaker 1: first confinement. On Stanley's birth certificate, Rachel wrote that both
Speaker 1: she and Harry were residing at the same address, but
Speaker 1: her husband who knows where, for he'd gone to sea
Speaker 1: as a third class steward on an ocean liner. The
Speaker 1: couple may have separated, but their lives remain knotted together.
Speaker 1: Their meetings would become ever more acrimonious, and in the
Speaker 1: coming years, Harry Dobkin would wage an awful campaign of
Speaker 1: threats and violence against his ever more fragile wife. Bad Women,
Speaker 1: the Blackout Ripper will be back. After this short break
Speaker 1: stage your full name for the record. Harry Dobkin had
Speaker 1: clearly not been providing for his family and was summons
Speaker 1: to the imposing Old Street Police Court, where he was
Speaker 1: ordered to pay the sum of one pound per week
Speaker 1: to his wife and child, a considerable portion of his earnings.
Speaker 1: Divorce was expensive, difficult to obtain, and carried a stigma,
Speaker 1: so the pair chose to remain married. According to Ginger Frost,
Speaker 1: such messy separations often crippled both parties. Usually separations come,
Speaker 1: it's usually years of marriage. The woman would do a
Speaker 1: lot to avoid it because the separation payments you get
Speaker 1: are not the same as having a breadwinner. They're not
Speaker 1: enough really to keep you in any children, So she
Speaker 1: has to work. That means somebody has to take care
Speaker 1: of the kids. It just doesn't work. Harry paid the
Speaker 1: sum for a few weeks perhaps, but then fell into arrears.
Speaker 1: He was again holed up at court and sentenced to
Speaker 1: six weeks in prison. This measure was ultimately intended to
Speaker 1: discourage non payment, but of course while Harry was in prison,
Speaker 1: his income was halted him going to job. That happens
Speaker 1: all the time. Men can never make these payments because
Speaker 1: you can't keep two households on that. She can't keep
Speaker 1: her house on that, and he can't keep his on that.
Speaker 1: You got to live with somebody else. He didn't appear
Speaker 1: to want another relationship, but if he ever wanted to
Speaker 1: have another one, he couldn't afford it because he was
Speaker 1: paying so much of his pay to her. So conflict
Speaker 1: on that really common. When Harry left prison, he took
Speaker 1: a job aboard the s S. Pittsburgh of the White
Speaker 1: Star Line, sailed away and did not return for ten years.
Speaker 1: How Rachel made ends meet in Harry's absence is unclear.
Speaker 1: It's doubtful he sent money back. When Harry Dobkin finally
Speaker 1: returned from c he says relatives tried to engineer a
Speaker 1: rapprochement to bring the husband and wife back together again.
Speaker 1: He even claimed he was offered money to reunite with
Speaker 1: Rachel eight pounds. So the unhappy pair lived together briefly
Speaker 1: for According to Harry, the arguments erupted again. Then discovered
Speaker 1: that almost seemings discharge papers will missing, and accused my
Speaker 1: wife of taking them. She accused me of taking a
Speaker 1: brooch belonging to her. Where is it? Come? Tell me?
Speaker 1: I was arrested and charged of stealing. The following day,
Speaker 1: I appeared at Old Street police call, but a case
Speaker 1: was dismissed. The apartment was rented in Harry's name, but
Speaker 1: he said that he left and moved back in with
Speaker 1: his parents. He bemoaned that thereafter Rachel continually reported him
Speaker 1: for non payment of their maintenance agreement, and he spent
Speaker 1: several short spells behind bars. By Harry's account, Rachel was
Speaker 1: an exasperating nuisance. His sister Annie described how she would
Speaker 1: turn up at her home causing trouble. She called at
Speaker 1: all hours and kicked up a row. There is, however,
Speaker 1: another side to this story. In January nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 1: someone tried to set a fire on Rachel's doorstep at
Speaker 1: five am. An employee of the housing block was sent
Speaker 1: to survey the considerable damage from the lockdownwards. The door
Speaker 1: had been burned almost through. It looked as though someone
Speaker 1: had put some oily rag and paper against the door
Speaker 1: and had set light to him. Terrified, Rachel was convinced
Speaker 1: that Harry was behind the arsen attack. Perhaps it was
Speaker 1: an attempt to merely intimidate her, or perhaps it was
Speaker 1: a bid to end the union. Permanently. Rachel didn't pursue
Speaker 1: her husband through the courts, and no charges were laid
Speaker 1: against him. The residence of Whitechapel erected barricades and readied
Speaker 1: themselves to repel the invaders. In almost medieval scenes, cobbles
Speaker 1: and paving stones were lifted in preparation to pelt the
Speaker 1: approaching enemy, and those in upstairs windows boiled water to
Speaker 1: rain down on their foes. Mounted police charged the locals
Speaker 1: of this Jewish neighborhood, hoping the blows from their truncheons
Speaker 1: would clear a path through. The thousands assembled a path
Speaker 1: that would allow Sir Oswald Moseley and his black shirted
Speaker 1: British fascists to stage a provocative march. The police could
Speaker 1: make a little headway, the barriers were too numerous, the
Speaker 1: crowds too enraged, the hail of stones too thick. The
Speaker 1: fascist procession would have to take another route. We were
Speaker 1: through free, complained the black Shirts when they were denied
Speaker 1: the chance to struck past synagogues, Jewish homes, and Jewish businesses,
Speaker 1: raising their stiff armed Nazi salutes. The black Shirt leader
Speaker 1: talked openly of expelling Jews from the country and Amongst
Speaker 1: his rabble rousing accusations, he blamed the Jewish garment workshops
Speaker 1: of Whitechapel for the woes of an industry hit by
Speaker 1: the Great Depression. Bloodied and bested, the black Shirts at
Speaker 1: last retreated and marched away from the East End. Moseley
Speaker 1: had humiliatingly lost the Battle of Cable Street and went
Speaker 1: to Berlin to lick his wounds, where he also found
Speaker 1: time to marry his fiancee. Under the gaze of Hitler himself,
Speaker 1: the doctor examined the bruising on Rachel Dobkin's arms and face.
Speaker 1: What caused this, he asked his patient, my husband, she replied,
Speaker 1: When Rachel returned with a black eye, Doctor Murphy made
Speaker 1: a record of the assault. My sister's husband has been
Speaker 1: very cruel to her. Polly Dubinsky was eleven years younger
Speaker 1: than Rachel, but she kept a protective eye on her
Speaker 1: older sister. She has received severe blows from him at
Speaker 1: different times. Friend Sadie Zimbler also saw Rachel's black eyes
Speaker 1: and purple bruises. She told me that he was a
Speaker 1: violent man, and I advised her to keep away from him.
Speaker 1: Although they lived apart. Rachel's meetings with Harry could still
Speaker 1: flare into disagreement, and Harry would try to win these
Speaker 1: disputes with his fists. The abuse inflicted such trauma that
Speaker 1: Rachel became unable to work. It seems that Harry's attempts
Speaker 1: to silence his wife only made her even more reliant
Speaker 1: on his maintenance payments Supper Harry. In nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Harry beat Rachel in the street so hard that she
Speaker 1: suffered a so called mental lapse. Unbeknownst to her family,
Speaker 1: she was sent to an observation board in nearby Saint
Speaker 1: Clement's Hospital. The treatment of mental illness was changing. Lunatics
Speaker 1: were now patients and no longer insane, but of unsound mind.
Speaker 1: Mental ill health was an ailment, and hopefully a temporary one,
Speaker 1: rather than an identity. Previously, doctors waited until people were
Speaker 1: so ill that they could be certified insane and sent
Speaker 1: to an asylum. But now observation woods welcomed patients like
Speaker 1: Rachel and then decided whether they needed more intensive treatment,
Speaker 1: a period of convalescence, or had recovered sufficiently to be discharged.
Speaker 1: When Rachel's siblings, Polly, Mary and Nathan marched through the doors,
Speaker 1: of the hospital two days later to retrieve her. They
Speaker 1: were adamant that their sister was quite well enough to leave.
Speaker 1: Rachel was said to be frightened. I'm not sure I'm
Speaker 1: quite well, and she described fiery feelings on the crown
Speaker 1: of her head and giddiness. Though her time in hospital
Speaker 1: was short, the suggestion that Rachel was of unsound mind
Speaker 1: would haunt her in the coming years, prompting some to
Speaker 1: discount her growing concerns about her abusive husband. That's one
Speaker 1: Russian tea. Maud Air didn't know the agitated man. Ordering
Speaker 1: food at her son's cafe on an August day in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine, the customer, Harry Dobkin, topped to waiting staff,
Speaker 1: then approached Maude. My wife is pregnant. She's threatened to
Speaker 1: have an illegal operation. Will you come and ever talk
Speaker 1: with her and persuade her not to do it. Maude
Speaker 1: followed Harry Dobkin back to his nearby rented room. He
Speaker 1: was earning a living making and selling aprons, and the
Speaker 1: space was both home and workshop. Inside she found Rachel.
Speaker 1: She then said, I'm pregnant. I have a boy of
Speaker 1: eighteen and I don't want to go through with another one.
Speaker 1: I've paid the money and I'm going to have an
Speaker 1: illegal operation tomorrow. Maude explained to the englishwoman that the
Speaker 1: procedure would be dangerous. I told her not to be
Speaker 1: silly and go through and have the child. Rachel, who
Speaker 1: admitted that she had already tried to end the pregnancy
Speaker 1: by swallowing an anti malarial drug, seemed to listen to
Speaker 1: this advice. I will not have it done. Will you
Speaker 1: speak to my husband. Rachel's husband, however, had already left.
Speaker 1: He'd gone to report her to the police. Interviewed by officers,
Speaker 1: Rachel described how Harry's abuse had escalated during one of
Speaker 1: her visits to seek her overdue alimony about a fortnight ago.
Speaker 1: My husband forced himself for me and had intercourse, although
Speaker 1: I did not wish it. This accusation of rape, denied
Speaker 1: by Harry, seems not to have interested the police. A
Speaker 1: wife couldn't deny her husband's sex, said the law, but
Speaker 1: seeking an abortion was an offense. They'd happily investigate. Husband
Speaker 1: and wife disagreed about who'd insisted on the termination, but
Speaker 1: Rachel was not in fact pregnant. A doctor who examined
Speaker 1: her at the behest of The police concluded that she
Speaker 1: was going through the menopause and suffering from menopausal neurosis
Speaker 1: that made her a borderline mental case. In their final report,
Speaker 1: police noted that Rachel was unreliable, rambling and suffering from
Speaker 1: bad nerves. Despite Rachel's accusations of violence, the police decided
Speaker 1: that Harry and Rachel were essentially as bad as one another.
Speaker 1: Both mister and Missus Dobkins are very vindictive towards each other.
Speaker 1: There is no doubt Harry Dobkins tries to avoid payment
Speaker 1: of the maintenance order. She in turn, molests him whenever possible.
Speaker 1: Homicide expert Professor Jane Monkton Smith is familiar with such
Speaker 1: explanations of domestic violence. The six of one half a
Speaker 1: dozen of the other narrative I think is incredibly damaging
Speaker 1: to victims, especially of control and abuse. We sent Jane
Speaker 1: the files on Rachel Sobkin, and she felt that the
Speaker 1: police were wrongly dismissive of Rachel's plight. He wasn't living
Speaker 1: with her, so he's coming in from outside and forcing
Speaker 1: himself on her, and this woman is left to deal
Speaker 1: with the consequences of his violence time and time and
Speaker 1: time again. And you do not see that being spoken
Speaker 1: about in any of the records. The violence is almost
Speaker 1: spoken about as if, well, they had that kind of relationship,
Speaker 1: So that's what was going on, and she was a
Speaker 1: bit crazy anyway. So poor guy. She was on the
Speaker 1: road to losing her life, absolutely definitely, and not a
Speaker 1: single person was on her side. It wasn't long after
Speaker 1: this incident that Rachel started to visit the medium Madame Nerva.
Speaker 1: Spiritualism was immensely popular. Practitioners believe that the dead survived
Speaker 1: in another realm and could commune with the living. Sherlock
Speaker 1: Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had even been among
Speaker 1: spiritualisms celebrity proponents. For historian Ginger Frost, its popularity is
Speaker 1: linked to the upheaval and tragedy that unfolded in the
Speaker 1: first part of the twentieth century. So many people died
Speaker 1: in World War One, and the flu epidemic took out
Speaker 1: even more, and those two whammy's within a couple of
Speaker 1: three years of each other. It was just disaster, and
Speaker 1: most people had lost multiple people in their lives. They
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to connect to them again. They
Speaker 1: wanted some hope that they were still somewhere and I
Speaker 1: can understand that, and so saund circles and mediums proliferated.
Speaker 1: Most of them have like a spirit guide who would
Speaker 1: show up and they'd speak in that guide's voice, and
Speaker 1: the guide would answer questions. Some of them transported things,
Speaker 1: of course, most of them had just concealed them on
Speaker 1: their bodies. But they would just suddenly spout flowers, or
Speaker 1: they would have a relic from another time that would
Speaker 1: be in their hand, or they were seeing things from
Speaker 1: other times, they were going other places without actually leaving
Speaker 1: the room. There were all of these kinds of psychic
Speaker 1: Hilda Nerva, a Polish emigre, told the Psychic News that
Speaker 1: since childhood she'd possessed a strange power that enabled her
Speaker 1: to help other girls with their problems. Rachel certainly came
Speaker 1: burdened with problems, and her relationship with Madame Nerva seems
Speaker 1: to have had a therapeutic quality. This wasn't uncommon to
Speaker 1: talk out things with their their comforting. It's just if
Speaker 1: you think of it that ways, it's kind of therapy.
Speaker 1: It seems like a very healthy to have someone to
Speaker 1: go to and talk to about the stuff and feel
Speaker 1: better when you leave. Rachel went to the Little Brick
Speaker 1: House every other Sunday, but April eighth, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 1: was a Tuesday. Rachel Dobkin, now forty eight years old,
Speaker 1: had a pressing question for Madame Nerva. Can you tell
Speaker 1: me something? Give me an article and I'll try and
Speaker 1: get through for you. Rachel handed over the wedding ring
Speaker 1: and Madame Nerva entered a semitrance. You are worried and
Speaker 1: full of trouble. You are planning to go in a
Speaker 1: few days on a journey to meet someone. Don't go.
Speaker 1: Leave it to the spirit friends, and stay where you are.
Speaker 1: The psychic described a vision of Rachel entering a large
Speaker 1: building where she knew there was money for her. I
Speaker 1: see sadness for you. Will you promise not to go?
Speaker 1: Rachel made the promise, but Madame Nerva's words seemed to
Speaker 1: have weighed on her heavily. Bad women the blackout Ripper
Speaker 1: will be back after this short break. Two days after
Speaker 1: her meeting with Madame Nerva, Rachel called at the home
Speaker 1: of a friend who said she was depressed, anxious, and
Speaker 1: afraid of Harry. She told me that her husband would
Speaker 1: get her sooner or later. We'll finish her. Yet the
Speaker 1: following Rachel appears to have had a change of heart.
Speaker 1: On Friday morning, she met with her beloved son Stanley,
Speaker 1: and they arranged to go to the cinema later that afternoon.
Speaker 1: At lunchtime, she crossed paths with Polly and told her
Speaker 1: that her husband had offered her a pound of onions
Speaker 1: as a present, food being scarce at this stage of
Speaker 1: the war, and she was going to meet him. Harry
Speaker 1: Dobkins said he encountered his wife on the street near
Speaker 1: his house. He was on his way out to sell
Speaker 1: some aprons. It was obvious she had been my infamy.
Speaker 1: Rachel was always trying to lure him back to live
Speaker 1: with her, he said, casting himself in the role of
Speaker 1: the beleiagued victim. I said, please don't hang around here
Speaker 1: and calls trouble. My mother is very ill. They agreed
Speaker 1: to meet later at a local cafe. The proprietors remembered
Speaker 1: them coming in. She'd seen them together before. They sat
Speaker 1: at a corner table. The woman was very tall. The
Speaker 1: couple appeared quite friendly, and they were not quarreling or arguing.
Speaker 1: But Harry told a different story. She said, if you
Speaker 1: don't make peace with me. I'll might trouble for you.
Speaker 1: She was talking in low tones, but was a bit hysterical.
Speaker 1: After this threat, I said, I'll consider peace if you
Speaker 1: will calm yourself and go home. She drank a cup
Speaker 1: of tea, and as we left a tea shop, she
Speaker 1: said she didn't feel well and she was going to
Speaker 1: her mother's to hear the wireless. Harry said. She boarded
Speaker 1: the number twenty two bus and he watched as it
Speaker 1: merched away towards Shoreditch. That evening, Polly finished work and
Speaker 1: went home early. The baby of the family, she hadn't
Speaker 1: followed her siblings into the garment trade, and had instead
Speaker 1: learnt shorthand typing and become a bookkeeper and clerk at
Speaker 1: a city office. Rachel never appeared at the flat to
Speaker 1: rest and listened to the wireless, nor did she make
Speaker 1: it to the cinema with Ordinarily she would call round
Speaker 1: in the evenings and eat dinner with her family, but
Speaker 1: that night her place at the table sat empty. The
Speaker 1: following morning, there was still no sign of her, and
Speaker 1: Polly felt uneasy enough to let herself into Rachel's flat
Speaker 1: with the spare key. When she saw her sister's undisturbed
Speaker 1: bedsheets and realized that she hadn't slept there. Polly felt
Speaker 1: sure that something terrible had happened. At first, the flames
Speaker 1: licked at the old church ruins, dancing across its floorboards
Speaker 1: and wood paneling. Then they curled around what remained of
Speaker 1: the timber rafters, and soon the orange blaze lit up
Speaker 1: the night sky. Harry Dodkin supplemented his income as a
Speaker 1: part time firewatcher at the warehouse next door. Apron Sales
Speaker 1: had been poor, so he spent his nights protecting these
Speaker 1: premises from the incendary bombs dropped by the Germans. He
Speaker 1: greeted the police and firefighters when they finally arrived, showing
Speaker 1: them the best route to reach the fire that gripped
Speaker 1: the bombed out ruins of Vauxhall Baptist Chapel. The stout
Speaker 1: little man in his suit and trilby hat seemed excited
Speaker 1: and claimed to have tried to extinguish the flames, though
Speaker 1: he hadn't raised the alarm his very role as a firewatcher.
Speaker 1: One witness recalled a strange remark he made, I didn't
Speaker 1: do it. Across town. The Dubinskis were worried sick about Rachel.
Speaker 1: They hadn't seen her for over three days, and they
Speaker 1: alerted the police. The only clue was Rachel's handbag that
Speaker 1: had been found thirty miles from the city, and which
Speaker 1: contained vital documents such as her ration book. Officers searched
Speaker 1: for the missing woman had trained stations and in local hospitals,
Speaker 1: and they wrote extensive reports, but they did not take
Speaker 1: polly suspicions or the prophecies of Madame Nerva particularly seriously. Instead,
Speaker 1: they pointed to Rachel's mental health history. The woman was
Speaker 1: clearly troubled, and she'd probably gone and drowned herself, they thought.
Speaker 1: But over the next year, Polly returned time and again
Speaker 1: to the police, imploring them to act now. In the
Speaker 1: character of her husband, I'm reporting this because I feel
Speaker 1: he has had some hand in her disappearance. Polly's unrelenting
Speaker 1: campaign for justice seems to have annoyed the detectives. One
Speaker 1: police file cast doubt on her mental health, saying she
Speaker 1: buckled under the sorrow of Rachel's disappearance and was experiencing
Speaker 1: her llucinations. Officers did search the chapel, but hampered by
Speaker 1: bomb and fire damage, found nothing and Ultimately, it was
Speaker 1: thought inconceivable that Harry Dobkin would have waited over twenty
Speaker 1: years to kill Rachel. There is not the slightest indication
Speaker 1: that Harry Dobkin has murdered his wife, as suggested by
Speaker 1: the missing woman's relations, but Jane Mountin Smith says that
Speaker 1: to arrive at such a conclusion is to totally misunderstand
Speaker 1: intimate partner violence. One thing that we do know about
Speaker 1: this type of homicide is that there's a level of
Speaker 1: planning in most of them, and in some cases they
Speaker 1: will try and make it look like there's been a
Speaker 1: car accident or a strange fall, or even illness. Sometimes
Speaker 1: that goes on a lot, So sometimes these things are
Speaker 1: never found out, and sometimes, yeah, it can take a
Speaker 1: long time before they're uncovered. The police also tied themselves
Speaker 1: in knots to discredit accounts of Harry's violence. For instance,
Speaker 1: Polly may have noticed Rachel's bruises and been told how
Speaker 1: they've been caused, but officers noted that Polly had never
Speaker 1: actually seen Harry strike her sister or threatened her life.
Speaker 1: In their questions to witnesses. The police also seem to
Speaker 1: have been particularly interested and how often Rachel contacted Harry
Speaker 1: as though this meant she could not have seriously feared
Speaker 1: he would do her harm. When I was reading the
Speaker 1: case notes for this, I actually got quite angry because
Speaker 1: she suffered a significant injury, which caused people to then
Speaker 1: be able to accuse her of having mental health problems.
Speaker 1: This poor woman probably couldn't open her mouth without somebody
Speaker 1: interpreting what she was saying or doing as crazy, which
Speaker 1: then tends to protect him. But he inflicted that injury,
Speaker 1: and then she's accused of chasing him for money and
Speaker 1: him having to spend time in prison because he hadn't
Speaker 1: paid the money. This is a violent, nasty man. He
Speaker 1: was the architect of all of the problems that she had,
Speaker 1: and they're speaking about him as if she's the problem.
Speaker 1: What did they think she was going to do for money?
Speaker 1: She had no means of supporting herself. She was of
Speaker 1: a status of a single mother back then. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 1: that would have been so hard. As the months went by,
Speaker 1: there was still no sign of Rachel. Twice Polly was
Speaker 1: called into identified bodies, neither of which turned out to
Speaker 1: be her sister. These experiences proved so traumatic that Polly
Speaker 1: refused any further invitations to the morgue. Harry Dobkin probably
Speaker 1: thought that he had got away with Rachel's murder, but
Speaker 1: Harry Dobkin was wrong. The forensic pathologists set to work
Speaker 1: examining the torso that Benja men Marshall had discovered in
Speaker 1: the basement at the chapel. It was so small and
Speaker 1: slight that at first he thought it might have belonged
Speaker 1: to a young girl. The hair and other parts of
Speaker 1: the body were missing, and what remained had been mutilated
Speaker 1: and partially burned. The perpetrator clearly thought his grizzly handiwork
Speaker 1: would frustrate attempts to identify the dead woman, but the
Speaker 1: murderer hadn't reckoned on the persistence and skill of the
Speaker 1: pathology team. They raked and sibbed through tons of rubble
Speaker 1: from the chapel looking for more clues, and the X
Speaker 1: rayed and photographed the remains in a lab at one
Speaker 1: of London's top hospitals, determined to find out who the
Speaker 1: dead woman was. Finally, Abraham Kopkin was summoned. He tended
Speaker 1: to teeth across the East End fillings extractions dnches, a
Speaker 1: surviving section of jaw was set before the dentist. That's
Speaker 1: my patient, that's missus dobb In August nineteen forty two,
Speaker 1: the police went to question Harry Dobkin. He was living
Speaker 1: with his aged parents in the front room of their house.
Speaker 1: The space was furnished simply, and there were boxes of
Speaker 1: leather and fabric straps everywhere. There's been a development in
Speaker 1: respect to your wife. I want you to accompany us
Speaker 1: to the police station for further inquiries. Harry protested that
Speaker 1: he knew nothing of any cellar at the chapel, had
Speaker 1: never once been down there. He grew agitated, and then
Speaker 1: he took a bill from a leather merchant's firm out
Speaker 1: of his pocket, sprawled a note on the back, and
Speaker 1: handed it to a police officer. He was said to
Speaker 1: be in the habit of writing down his thoughts on
Speaker 1: scraps of paper, Divisional Inspector, Dear sir, It read, in
Speaker 1: respect to what you say that my wife has been
Speaker 1: found dead or murdered, and that you say I know
Speaker 1: something that I am holding back from the police. I
Speaker 1: am sorry to say that I cannot say anything different
Speaker 1: to my previous statements. But the police had said nothing
Speaker 1: about murder, nor had they suggested he was holding information
Speaker 1: back from them. They charged him, implying that Rachel had
Speaker 1: driven her husband to murder. We suggest that Dobkin had
Speaker 1: reason to be rid of his wife, as she had
Speaker 1: been a financial incumbrance to him for many years. The
Speaker 1: maintenance order was a constant drain on him. He'd been
Speaker 1: committed to prison several times for its non payment. He
Speaker 1: has also said that she pestered his parents, which did
Speaker 1: not improve matters. Jane Monkton Smith thinks that such a
Speaker 1: reading of Harry Dobkins's motive, one that paints Rachel as
Speaker 1: a shrew and to blame for her own death, badly
Speaker 1: misses the mark. That's the society we created for men,
Speaker 1: created for women, a society where they would be reliant
Speaker 1: on them, and they get annoyed about that when they
Speaker 1: don't want that woman anymore. And he wanted rid of her.
Speaker 1: I really believe that he wanted rid of her because
Speaker 1: he could see himself going back into prison again for
Speaker 1: not giving her money. How dare she? How dare she
Speaker 1: wreck his life by trying to get money off him
Speaker 1: when he's got other things to do and a life
Speaker 1: to lead with no thought for how he has wrecked
Speaker 1: her life and just expected that she would take it.
Speaker 1: The jury deliberated for only twenty minutes, and they were
Speaker 1: unanimous on their verdict. Harry Dobkin had strangled his wife
Speaker 1: to death with his bare hands and then concealed her
Speaker 1: remains in the church cellar. He was hanged on a cold,
Speaker 1: foggy morning at once Worth Prison in South London. After
Speaker 1: the trial, a journalist visited the Dubinski family home. They
Speaker 1: kept a photo of Rachel atop the piano, she noted,
Speaker 1: and another over on the wall, and very beautiful she looked.
Speaker 1: The reporter was intrigued by the role Madame Nerva and
Speaker 1: spiritualism had played in the case. Then Rachel's mother, Sarah
Speaker 1: and her sister Mary confided that all the time that
Speaker 1: her body had lain concealed in the church ruins, they'd
Speaker 1: heard strange knocks at the door, only to find no
Speaker 1: one waiting on the step, And then in the dead
Speaker 1: of night, Sarah had repeatedly been woken by a voice
Speaker 1: from the playground outside, the voice of her missing daughter. Rachel,
Speaker 1: so tormented and ill served in life, now at least
Speaker 1: rested in a proper grave. On the headstone the Dubinskis
Speaker 1: chose to end the heartfelt inscription with a wish peace
Speaker 1: to her dear soul bad women. The Blackout Ripper is
Speaker 1: hosted by me Hallie rubin Hold and me Alice Fines.
Speaker 1: It was written and produced by Alice Fines and Ryan Dilley,
Speaker 1: with additional support from Courtney Guerino and Arthur Gomperts. Kate
Speaker 1: Healy of Oakwood Family Trees aided us with genealogical research.
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise Sound designed and mixed the show and composed
Speaker 1: all the original music. The show was recorded at Wardoor
Speaker 1: Studios by David Smith and Tom Berry. You also heard
Speaker 1: the voice talents of Ben Crow, David Glover, Melanie Gutridge,
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Gemma Saunders, and Rufus Wright. Much of the
Speaker 1: music you heard was performed by Edgarchan, Ross Hughes, Christian
Speaker 1: Miller and Marcus Penrose. They were recorded by Nick Taylor
Speaker 1: at Portupine Studios. Pushkin's Bend Holiday mixed the tracks and
Speaker 1: you heard additional piano playing by the great Berry Wise
Speaker 1: Hi Berry. The show also wouldn't have been possible without
Speaker 1: the work of Jacob Weisberg, Heather Faine, Carlie Migliori, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, and Daniella Lukhan. We'd also like
Speaker 1: to thank Michael Buchanan Dunne of the Murder Mile podcast,
Speaker 1: Lizzie McCarroll, Catherine Walker at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and
Speaker 1: the Earbe Historical Society. Bad Women is a production of
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. Please rate and review the show and spread
Speaker 1: the word about what we do, and thanks for listening
Speaker 1: and he and people in the