Rizal is a symbol that is heavily proliferated in our everyday life, from the names of streets to our textbooks, from the money we use to the t-shirts we wear. But in all his glorious ubiquity, could we be forgetting just how much we don’t know about our national hero? Here are four of the most pervasive mysteries surrounding him.
Rizal was the father of Adolf Hitler.
The most infamous mystery is that Rizal fathered the German Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. This rumor began circulating because of an educational film about Nazism and World War II. In it, a framed photo of Rizal was found hanging on Hitler’s bunker. This poses the question, “Was Hitler a fan of our national hero or was it something more?” Jose Rizal was educated in Europe and he spent a great deal of time in Germany. To this day, he is revered with a street and statue in Wilhelmsfeld. In fact his novel, Noli Me Tangere, was first published in Berlin in 1887. Rizal certainly made an impact in Germany.
In his journals, Rizal mentions a German housekeeper, some history buffs linked this entry with Hitler’s mother, the pious housekeeper Klara Polzl. Perhaps they had a torrid affair that led to a monstrous love child? Is it a bit of an overreach to say that Rizal named his beloved character, Maria Clara, after Klara Polzl? Though this mystery has been disproven, it still makes for an amusing theory as one of Rizal’s closest friends was a German named Dr. Adolf B. Meyer.
Rizal was gay.
An article by Isagani Cruz probably reaffirmed a thought that people have been wondering about for ages, “How come our great boy babaero never fathered a child? Is he gay?” Josephine Bracken, the Irish beauty who Rizal married before marching off to his death miscarried his only seed. But even that baby’s paternity is highly disputed because of the rumors that Josephine Bracken’s father abused her and the child she was carrying was a product of incest.
There is no substantiating evidence to prove that Rizal was gay, although many point to his relationship with author Ferdinand Blumentritt as being unusually close. Was he the reason that even after so many international conquests, he was never able to pass on his greatness? We can only speculate. Although, in today’s standards he would definitely be setting off peoples’ gaydars. After all, he was well-educated, well-groomed, suave, charming, and close to his mother. Most of all, he was an overachiever – a mark of many career driven gay men. Historians recount that Rizal was not the type of man who would frequent brothels and he was very respectful of women, always keeping in mind his fiancee, the Filipina Leonor Rivera. Is that being gay or was he just one gem of a man?
Rizal was really Jack the Ripper.
Jack the Ripper is polled as Great Britain’s most evil person on BBC History Magazine. His hatred for women and savage killing of at least 5 prostitutes is a tale of horror still talked about today. His case was never solved thus his identity is one of the world’s great mysteries. How is this related to Rizal? Our national hero Jose Rizal was in London during the killings from May 1888 to January 1889. He was copying a book, “the Sucesos de las islas Filipinas” staying in the library for the whole day. But not much is known of his whereabouts at night. Other than his mere presence in London, the killings link to Rizal because he was a doctor. Skilled with the surgical knife, he even performed on his mother’s eye.
Jack the Ripper’s victims were brutalized with strategic cuts on the neck and incisions that took out the uterus from the abdomen. In his many letters sent back home, not once did he mention the killings - undoubtedly the biggest news of that time. When Rizal departed from London in 1889, the killings stopped. In 1986, the present day owners of the house Rizal stayed in reported finding preserved human innards and a confession letter from Rizal. Most obvious of all, the links is that Jack the Ripper and Jose Rizal shared the same initials.
Rizal is God.
Living in the bastion of Catholicism in Asia, most Filipinos would find the thought of Rizal as God utterly blasphemous but a group of people from the birthplace of Rizal in Calamba, Laguna beg to differ. The Rizalistas call him the Amang Doktor Jose Rizal, the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, who is said to resemble a wrinkly but wizened Rizal with a full white beard and a moustache. Supposedly, he makes appearances dressed in his overcoat in Lecheria to reassure his followers that he is alive. Many other groups have sprouted from there and Rizal has churches all over the country, and even abroad. Registered ones include: Samahan ng Tatlong Persona Solo Dios, Ciudad Mistica de Dios, Adamista, Bathalismo, Watawat ng Lahi, Iglesia Sagrada Flilipina, and Espiritual Pilipino Catholic Church. They all see Rizal’s Christ-like qualities such as purity of purpose, a belief in peace, preaching oneness, and of course, the power to heal. Jesus performed miracles and Rizal knew medicine. Also, there is the obvious similarity that both Rizal and Christ were from oppressed societies with colonial masters. Eerily enough, when Rizal was martyred he is said to have uttered the very same last words that Jesus said after dying on the cross, “Consumatum Est,” a Latin phrase that means, “It is finished.”
The Rizalistas believe that there will be a second coming of Rizal, so only time will be able to prove if this mystery is indeed true.
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