Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
My family were saved from Nazi death camp ...by Prince Philip’s mum
with her grandmother Queen ictoria present, Princess Alice was ferent even in childhood. eaf from the age of eight, she was, me members of her family believed, ed with special empathy for people. lice fell in love with Prince Andrew Greece at the coronation of her sin King Edward VII in 1902, and y married in 1903. The youngest of r five children is Prince Philip. adly, her marriage fell apart when nce Andrew abandoned her to live as ayboy in Paris. Alice suffered a breakwn and, in 1930, was forcibly removed m her family and treated for schizoenia in a Swiss mental institution. n the advice of Sigmund Freud, her mb was blasted with X-rays to “cure of her sexual desires”. uring this time, her three daughters rried German princes, who later ght with the Nazis, but she did not attend their weddings. Prince Philip, moved to Britain to live with his uncles Louis and George Mountbatten.
Alice later settled alone in Greece, where she worked to help the poor.
She reconnected with Haimaki and, aware of the increasing anti-semitism in Europe, promised to help the Cohens if ever they needed aid.
They desperately called on that help in 1943, after Haimaki died of an illness.
Evy says: “History has told us that more than 95% of the 60,000 Jews in the city of Salonica were taken to the death camps and immediately gassed.
“My family did not know that then, but, of course, knew they were in great danger. Somehow they contacted Princess Alice and she took them into small apartments and only a handful of trusted people knew they were there. It was an incredibly courageous act.
Rachel’s three eldest sons Elie, Alfred and Jacques escaped on small boats to join the Greek free forces in Egypt.
Evy says: “They left their country only after they knew their mother and sister were safe. They believed Michel was also safe, but it turns out he was not and he was later also taken in by the Princess.”
When the Gestapo became suspicious they hauled Alice in for interrogation. But she pretended not to understand their questions because of her deafness.
During the Nazi occupation of Athens in 1943, some assumed that Alice was pro-german. But when one general asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”, she replied, “You can take your troops out of my country.”
After the war, Alice founded an order of nursing nuns and moved to a convent on the Greek island of Tinos. In 1967, in failing health, Alice was invited by Prince Philip to live at Buckingham Palace. She died there two years later.
During their last trip to Israel, in 1988, Evy’s parents learned that Princess Alice’s coffin had been transferred from Windsor to Jerusalem as per her wishes.
In 1993, Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the Holocaust honoured Alice with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”, the highest honour bestowed upon nonjews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews.
Evy says: “Princess Alice very much deserves the honour and it was very moving for me to know her great-great grandson appreciates what she did. My family and I will also do everything we can to ensure her story is told so her kindness and courage is never forgotten.”