Page 18 - TORCH Magazine #15 - February 2020

Who was Princess Alice?
In 1943, Athens was home to around 75,000 Jews. Of these, around 60,000 were deported to Nazi concentration camps, where all but 2,000 were murdered. During this period Princess Alice hid Jewish widow Rachel Cohen and two of her five children in her home. Rachel’s husband, Haimaki Cohen had aided King George I of Greece in 1913. In return, King George offered him any service he could perform, should Cohen ever need it. Cohen’s son remembered this during the Nazi threat and appealed to Princess Alice. She honoured the promise and saved the Cohen family.
When Athens was liberated in October 1944, Princess Alice insisted on walking the streets to distribute rations to policemen and children in contravention of the curfew order. When told she could be shot and killed, she replied, “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?”
Princess Alice died at Windsor Castle in 1969, and her remains lay at first in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. But her final wish was to be buried at the Russian Orthodox Convent on the Mount of Olives, near her aunt Elizabeth, the Grand Duchess of Russia, who was murdered by the Bolsheviks and declared a Russian Orthodox saint. Alice’s remains were transferred there in 1988. Both Prince Charles and Prince William have visited her grave whilst in Israel.
Princess Alice is recognised by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations”.
ourselves to tolerance and respect; and to ensuring that those who lived through this darkness will forever, as in the words of the prophet Isaiah, be ‘a light unto the nations,’ to guide the generations that follow.”
Read and watch the speech in full: www.cufi.org.uk/news/princecharlesIsrael
Earlier in the day, Charles visited Yad Vashem and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. Reflecting on the tour, he said it had been very special for him to be remembering
the Holocaust, because he knew so many survivors when he was young.
Marta Wise, who met Charles along with fellow Holocaust survivor George Shefit at the museum, said that she wanted Charles to know what really happened: “The horrors, the cruelty which was beyond human belief, and how I’m lucky to have escaped, with gratitude to heaven.”
Charles’s trip to Israel was his first official visit, and his third visit overall. Previously he came for the funerals of former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.
During his trip, Charles also met
the people behind some of Israel’s most innovative technological projects, leading him to say, “it seems to me like Israeli genius is maintaining the entire structure of the NHS, along with a great deal of other technology,” and spoke of “riveting developments and ingenious inventions.”
At the Israel Museum, Charles apparently spent longer than expected at
the Shrine of the Book, the wing of the Israel Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are kept and displayed on rotation. He was guided through the installation by Adolfo Roitman, head of the Dead Sea Scrolls unit. The Prince was visibly fascinated by what he was seeing.
The UK’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who accompanied Charles for part of the tour said, “For us to see Prince Charles here and so soon after Prince William came is very special. I have no clue why this room was chosen but the fact it was has enormous symbolism. Bayamim hahem bazman haze. Seeing survivors here and in the State of Israel, which is a miracle, is significant.
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