As the mother-in-law of the Queen of Britain saved the Jews during the war and became the righteous of the world

28 June during a visit to Israel Prince William, Duke of Cambridge visited the grave of his great-grandmother buried in Jerusalem, Princess Alice, who was honored by Israel for sheltering the Jews in her palace in Nazi-occupied Greece during the Holocaust. ForumDaily tells the story of the righteous world of royal blood.

Princess Alice Photo: Wikimedia, public domain

Alice is a German princess from the Battenberg dynasty, the wife of the Greek Prince Andrew and the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of the Queen of Great Britain Elizabeth II.

Alice was born at Windsor Castle in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria of England, and was deaf from birth. She spent her childhood and youth in Great Britain, Germany and the Mediterranean. In 1903, the princess married Andrew, Prince of Greece and Denmark. They had four daughters and a son - the future Duke of Edinburgh and husband of Queen Elizabeth II of England.

After 28 years, Alice was diagnosed with schizophrenia; the couple had separated at this point, and the princess retired to a Swiss sanatorium for several years without maintaining contact with her family.

After recovering her health, Alice returned to Greece and devoted herself to charity. During World War II, she remained in her husband’s homeland, where she sheltered Jewish refugees from the Germans. For this, she received the title of righteous people of the world. After the death of the princess, her remains were buried in the royal chapel of St. George at Windsor Castle. And in the 1988 year, according to her will, they were reburied in Jerusalem.

Prince William at the tomb of Princess Alice.
Photo: Twitter / @ KensingtonRoyal

During the Second World War, Princess Alice lived in the palace of her brother-in-law, Prince George, in Athens. She found herself in a difficult situation: her sons-in-law were on the side of fascist Germany, and her son served in the British navy, writes Stmegi.

One day, a princess who worked with the Swedish and Swiss Red Cross received a request for help from the family of the former member of the Greek parliament, Haimaki Cohen. Khaimaki died at the very beginning of the war, and his widow Rachel and five children, like all Greek Jews, were in great danger.

Back in 1913, Khaimaki Cohen provided support to King George I. For his part, the king offered Cohen any help if needed. After many years, recalling the offer of help, the son of Khaimaki appealed to Princess Alice, the daughter-in-law of the king, with a request to save the family from death, which she did.

The princess was well acquainted with his family and decided to help them by all means.

The four sons of Rachel were going to go to Egypt to join the exiled Greek government to fight the Nazis. However, for the mother and sister, such a journey was extremely risky. In October 1943, Princess Alice hid Rachel and her daughter Tilda in the basement of her own house, and soon one of her sons, Michel, who could not get to Egypt, joined them. The Coens hid in Alice’s house until the liberation of Greece.

Periodically, the Germans were suspicious and the Gestapo tried to get some information from Alice. But every time she pretended not to hear them and does not understand the questions. And in the end the Gestapo left her alone, it says on Yad Vashem museum site.

Although the Coens survived until liberation in the 1944 year, their history is exceptional. The vast majority of Jews were killed. In Thessaloniki, where the largest community in the country lived, more than 45 000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1943. Only 300 managed to avoid deportation. By the end of the war, about 65 000 from 75 000 Greek Jews were killed.

Being a deeply religious woman, in 1949, Princess Alice founded the Christian Convent of Martha and Mary, an Orthodox convent. Devoting her life to helping the sick and needy, the princess took a vow of celibacy and became known as Andrew's sister. She lived in isolation on the island of Tinos until 1967, when the Greek forces carried out a coup d'état.

After that, she moved to Buckingham Palace in London to be with her son and his family. She died in 1969, at the age of 84. Before her death, Princess Alice expressed a desire to be buried in Jerusalem next to her aunt, who also left the title of princess for the sake of monasticism. Only years later, 19, in 1988, her wish was fulfilled. The remains of Princess Alice were reburied in a crypt on the Mount of Olives.

Five years later, in 1993, Yad Vashem posthumously rewarded Princess Alice with the title of Righteous among the Nations for saving the Cohen family. In honor of Princess Alice, a tree was planted in the Holocaust Memorial Complex in Jerusalem.

Read also on ForumDaily:

How the Ukrainian family saved the future Knesset Speaker from the Nazis

From slaughter to revenge: Why the world still does not understand the Holocaust

The story of Oscar Schindler: a spy, an SS man, a drinking companion of Soviet soldiers and the righteous man of the world

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