The Mysterious Dibbuk Box
I was sitting around watching the History Channel today and the show I was watching talked about the Dibbuk Box. I hadn’t ever heard of this thing before. This box is considered haunted. It’s first known owner, as far as is believed to be true, was a Polish Jew who manages to survive the Holocaust. The box was purchased by Kevin Mannis at an estate sale. Mannis owned an antique store and the basement was thrown into chaos one day after he attained the box. After Mannis, a Truman State University Student purchased the box. This is what truly rocked me. I am a history major at Truman and had no knowledge of the Dibbuk Box in all my time when looking into the University, nor during my time at the University. Albeit, the box was no longer owned by the student. A local man had obtained the box. The box was still in town. Jason Haxton bought the box and sudden bouts of illness and obsession. The terrifying thing about the box and it’s original owner is the bizarre closeness to the story of Haxton’s grandmother. The woman, Havalah, was 103 when she passed away. Deeply religious and set in her ways, Haxton was shocked that Havalah and his grandmother’s stories so closely paralleled each other.
This would not have been so rattling to me is that none of the gruesome histories of the town are given to the students, except by word of mouth from other students. A forefront of Eugenics was based out of Kirksville. H.H. Laughlin was the man that Hitler’s vision of a superior race stemmed from. While Laughlin worked at his Eugenics, Havalah was under the wrath of Hitler’s attack on the Jews. In a Polish ghetto, the wine box become the entity it is now believed to be.
As of March 2017, the box no longer resides in the small college town. Zak Bagans purchased this terrifying box. The box now lies in Nevada, away from my college and the town that houses it.
I don’t necessarily believe in the connections of the box, or that the box is haunted. The box has simply opened my eyes to the sinister stories of the town I’ve now begun to call home.
