STAIR-WELL DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23540, 28 December 1939, Page 3

STAIR-WELL DEATH

A WOMAN REFUGEE [FROM OfII OWN COItIIESrONDENT] SYDNEY. Dec. 13 Falling eight floors down tho stairwell at a city building, an Austrian woman refugee was killed when she struck a steel grille above the basement. Registration papers in a bag found on the eighth floor landing led to her identification as Mrs. Martha Fitchmann, aged 32, who came to Australia in December, 1938. Mrs. Fitchmann, a dressmaker, had a shop in the city. When she registered as an alien she said she was a refugee from Austria, but did not say why she left the country to settle in Australia. She spoke fairly good English. A heart-rending scene was witnessed at a city police station when the dead woman's husband called with sobbing relatives to identify her body. The police were told that about the time Germany invaded Poland, bringing (Jiermany and' England into conflict, Mrs. Fitclimnnn tried to commit suicide by plunging a knife into her heart. Her husband prevented her and only a slight wound was inflicted. Mrs. Fitch man n had been worried about her parents in Austria, for she did not know their fato as a result of the war.