Exhibition- Righteous Among the Nations- Princess Alice of Battenberg
Princess Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Maria of Battenberg was born on February 25th, 1885, at Windsor Castle, England.
After her wedding to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, the couple resettled in Greece. In October 1928, Alice joined the Orthodox Church in France and spent most of her time volunteering with the Greek community. In 1943 the Nazis conquered Greece and advanced their plans to eliminate the Greek Jews as part of the ‘Final Solution’. During the Nazi invasion, Princess Alice hid and protected a Jewish family in her home, the Cohen family. The Third Reich sought the royal family's approval for a long time, so they sent German officers to Princess Alice's home to find out what might be done to satisfy her. During one of the visits, when a Nazi general asked her what he could do for her, she answered: “You can take your troops out of my country”.[1] As a response to Alice’s answer, the Nazis sent Gestapo officers to monitor her actions and even interrogated her.
The Cohen family stayed at Princess Alice’s until the liberation. After the war, she sold part of her jewelry to establish a ministry within the ‘Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary’ church, and an orphanage in Athens.
In 1993, the Yad Vashem Institute knowledge Princess Alice of Battenberg as Righteous Among the Nations.
[For the full text about Princess Alice of Battenberg, you are welcome to enter our main site]
[1] Rod Gragg, My Brother's Keeper: Christians Who Risked All to Protect Jewish Targets of the Nazi Holocaust (New York: Center Street, 2016), p. 175.
