They called her the Angel of Ravensbruck the notorious concentration camp where her outstanding courage and the efforts she made to comfort her fellow prisoners became a legend. Countess Teresa Lubinska survived the concentration camp, but she did not survive the violence of post-war London.
On the evening of Friday, May 24th, 1957, the countess, 77, went to a Polish-Catholic celebration at the home of friends in Ealing. When she left to catch an underground train, she was with a priest, who got off the train at Earls Court station. She went on to the next stop, Gloucester Road, and alighted from the train a 10.19 p.m.
Three minutes later she collapsed in the station lift, crying, Bandits! Bandits! Her last words were, I was on the platform and I was stabbed. She died before reaching hospital.
The post-mortem determined that she was stabbed five times in the chest with a knife with a blade only about two inches long.
Why, and by whom? Robbery was excluded because she was wearing a valuable silver brooch and still had her handbag with her. A politically motivated killing seemed more probable she was opposed to the post-war Polish Government, which she castigated regularly. She was also the chairperson of various Free Polish organisations.
The Polish community did not rule out an attack by former Nazis as a reprisal against her criticism of the Hitler regime and what it had done to her country.
Detectives at the murder scene noted that escape for the killer was simple the lift shaft at Gloucester Road isnt deep and a fit man could run up the emergency stairs in 45 seconds. In those days the lift took 48 seconds. More than 20,000 people were interviewed over a period of four years, but no arrests were made.