I was likened to a Holocaust denier, says Ripper author

A JACK the Ripper historian has revealed that she has been compared to a Holocaust denier for suggesting not all the victims were prostitutes.

Hallie Rubenhold, whose book claims that women murdered by the serial killer might not have been sex workers, has spoken of the “offensive” and “laughable” trolling she has experienced from “Ripperologists” since its publication.

She told the Hay Festival that one podcast even compared her to the Holocaust denier David Irving.

She said: “It’s absolutely absurd. And it’s offensive. It’s laughable. The amount of trolling – it’s constant. The other thing – the two-hour podcast – where I was compared to David Irving, the Holocaust denier. Saying that my level of dishonesty matches his. I mean, come on.”

The book, The Five: The Untold Lives of Women Killed by Jack the Ripper,

‘They were brutally treated women who died a terrible, terrible, death … I cannot see what is sexy about that’

which was published this year, reevaluated the victims’ lives.

However, the author has been accused of “furthering her own agenda” and “suppressing evidence”.

She said the critics’ arguments were unbelievable, adding: “I knew it was going to be controversial but I had no idea how controversial it was going to be.”

Rubenhold told the audience that people had said she had “an agenda because I’m a feminist” and that she “set out to write this book in the most cynical way possible, which is ‘I know, let’s make Jack the Ripper work for the Metoo age.’” She told the audience that the Metoo movement happened after she had started writing the book.

She added that she had been told she was doing a “gross disservice” to the victims and had been accused of “lying in order to denigrate sex workers”.

Ms Rubenhold said: “There are people out there who feel they have ownership over these women’s stories. We’ve spent years and years of our lives reading about this and these facts. If you question those facts, God have mercy on me.”

She also described how the five victims, Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly, struggled with alcoholism, illness and motherhood: “They were [brutally] treated women who died a [terrible] death … I cannot see what is sexy about that.”