Princess Alice of Battenberg, the Royal Nun Who Secretly Rescued a Jewish Family

Princess Alice of Battenberg (left) and Prince Andrew of Greece (right)

Princess Alice of Battenberg (later Princess Andrew of Greece) lived a very interesting life, enduring many battles of her own. Despite her unhappy marriage and schizophrenia, the princess redeemed herself by helping those in need, hiding a Jewish family in her own home at the height of the Nazi holocaust. Later, she founded her own sisterhood of nuns and was posthumously recognized as “Righteous Among The Nations,” the highest Israeli honor to non-Jews. Here are 14 facts about Princess Alice of Battenberg.

A Royal and Not-so-Royal Heritage

Princess Alice of Battenberg was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Prince Louis of Battenberg was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia von Hauke.  Prince Alexander was the fourth child of Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Wilhelmina of Baden.  Because of his parent’s morganatic marriage, Louis and his siblings were not allowed to take their father's grand ducal rank. From birth, Louis bore the title Count of Battenberg with the style Illustrious Highness, the rank given to his mother at the time of her marriage. In 1858, 1858 the Countess of Battenberg was elevated to Princess of Battenberg with the style of "Her Serene Highness.” Louis and his siblings were also elevated to princely rank. Alice’s mother, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, was the eldest daughter of the future Grand Duke Louis IV and Princess Alice, the second daughter and third child of Queen Victoria.

While her childhood was spent between Darmstadt, London, Jugenheim, and Malta (where her naval officer father was occasionally stationed), Princess Alice of Battenberg grew up living in the company of her royal relatives.

Birth and Congenital Defect

Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie was born on February 25, 1885 at Windsor Castle in Berkshire, England. Her mother, Princess Victoria of Hesse observed that Alice was slow in learning to talk. Her indistinct pronunciation became a cause of grave concern. After seeing an ear specialist, Alice was diagnosed as congenitally deaf. With encouragement from her mother, Alice learned to both lip-read and speak in English and German.

A Great Beauty

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece

Princess Alice of Battenberg was said to be greatly beautiful with “long blond hair and large brown eyes” that her great-uncle, the future King Edward VII remarked: “No throne is too good for her.”

Smitten by Love

Princess Alice of Battenberg was only 17 years old when she met Prince Andrew of Greece who was in London to attend the coronation of King Edward VII and his aunt, Queen Alexandra. Prince Andrew was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece and Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia. King George I was also the younger brother of Queen Alexandra.  According to Alice’s niece, Lady Pamela Hicks, “[Alice] was absolutely dotty about him,” and was “really, deeply in love” with Andrew. They married, first, in a civil ceremony at Darmstadt on October 6, 1903. The following day, Lutheran and Greek Orthodox ceremonies were held at the Evangelical Castle Church and the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe. After their wedding, she was officially styled Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark.

The Children of Princess Alice of Battenberg

Princess Alice with her daughters, Margarita and Theodora. 

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece had five children.  The eldest, Margarita, married Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.  Theodora was married to Berthold, Margrave of Baden. The third, Cecilie, married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse, and with him perished in a plane crash. The fourth daughter, Sophie of Greece first married Prince Christoph of Hesse, and then Prince George William of Hanover (25 March 1915 – 8 January 2006). Their youngest child was a boy, Philip, who married Queen Elizabeth II.

Breakdown and Schizophrenia

Some time after she began claiming she received divine messages and that she had healing powers, and following a nervous breakdown in 1930, a number of specialists confirmed that she was suffering from a condition called paranoid schizophrenia. She was then forced to depart her family and was placed in the sanatorium of Dr. Ludwig Binswanger in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland, the same institution where revered ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky was admitted.

Sigmund Freud, on the one hand, also examined Princess Andrew and alleged that her delusions resulted from sexual frustration. He recommended for the princess to have her ovaries X-rayed “in order to kill off her libido" to which the patient heavily protested.

Separation  from Prince Andrew

 Prince Andrew allegedly left her wife for her mistress while Princess Andrew was in the sanatorium, which basically left their son Philip homeless. The young man found himself spending time with relatives during boarding school holidays. Princess Andrew left the sanatorium in 1932 and started an incognito existence in Central Europe, breaking all ties with her whole family but her mother. Princess Andrew was only reunited with Prince Philip at the funeral of her daughter Cecilie, her son-in-law, and her two grand children who all figured in an air crash at Ostend.

A Selfless Life

During the Balkan Wars, Princess Andrew worked as a nurse, setting up field hospitals and assisting in operations. Her contribution to the war effort did not go unnoticed as she was awarded the Royal Red Cross in 1913 by King George V.

She was also a World War II hero and savior of the Jews despite the holocaust.  She would go against the curfew to walk the streets and distribute rations to children and policemen. When she was warned she might get struck by a stray bullet, she said, "They tell me that you don't hear the shot that kills you and in any case I am deaf. So, why worry about that?"

Stuck in Greece during the Nazi invasion in 1941, she hid Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and her two children in her home, which was near the Gestapo headquarters. When the Nazis started getting suspicious, she used her deafness to her advantage and pretended not to hear any of their questions. Later on she was given the posthumous recognition as Righteous Among the Nations, the highest honor given to non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust.  Later, Prince Philip remarked: "I suspect that it never occurred to her that her action was in any way special. She was a person with a deep religious faith, and she would have considered it to be a perfectly natural human reaction to fellow beings in distress." The British Government posthumously named her Hero of the Holocaust in 2010.

Mother Superior Alice-Elizabeth

In December 1944, her husband Prince Andrew died during the clash between British forces and communist guerillas, ending hopes of the couple reuniting since they last saw each other in 1939. Following the Second World War in 1949, Princess Andrew sold all of her jewels to establish the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary, a nursing order of Greek orthodox nuns.

Later Life and Death

 The Church of Mary Magdalene

Princess Andrew died at the Buckingham Palace on December 5, 1969, penniless and without any possession as she had given everything away . She was 84 years old. Her remains were initially buried in The Royal Crypt in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. Shortly before her death, she she expressed her desire to be buried at the Convent of Saint Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem (near her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a Russian Orthodox saint). Her daughter, Princess George of Hanover protested because it would be too far for her family to visit her grave. Princess Andrew shrugged her daughter’s opposition and joked: "Nonsense, there's a perfectly good bus service!" She finally got her wish after her remains were transferred to her final resting place on August 3, 1988.