Duke of Edinburgh broke unofficial boycott of Israel by British royals to attend 1994 ceremony naming Princess Alice as ‘righteous among the nations’ for hiding 3 Jews from Nazis
9 April 2021,
Britain’s Prince Philip jokes with British WWII veterans Nathan Kohaen, right, and Arthur Stark, who immigrated to Israel, during a ceremony at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Ramle, Israel, on Oct. 30, 1994, where he came to lay a wreath (AP Photo)
Prince Philip, who has died at 99, was perhaps the closest member of the British royal family to Jews and Jewish causes, and in 1994 made a historic visit to Israel. Although the trip was a personal one, made to honor his mother, Princess Alice of Greece, who is buried on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, it marked the end of an unofficial boycott of the Jewish state by the British monarchy. His grandson Prince William made the first official royal visit in 2018.
Buckingham Palace announced the prince’s death on Friday. Philip — who was married to Queen Elizabeth II for 74 years, predating her ascent to the throne by five years — had been in declining health for some time.
The prince, also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, came to Israel in 1994 to accept Yad Vashem’s recognition of his mother as one of fewer than 30,000 “righteous among the nations,” for saving three members of a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece. He visited her burial site, met with members of the Cohen family she had hidden in her Athens palace, and met too with Jewish veterans of World War II.
Philip’s four sisters each married German nobles, at least three of whom became Nazis
Philip’s four sisters each married German nobles, at least three of whom became Nazis. But Philip, educated in Britain, joined the allied war effort. As an adult, he showed little patience for Nazi collaborators; he was instrumental in making a pariah of his wife’s uncle Edward, who after abdicating the throne dallied with Nazi Germany. And his support for Jewish and pro-Israel causes ran deep.
Britain’s Prince Philip during his 1994 visit to Israel. (Screen capture: YouTube)
Philip over the years spoke multiple times at Jewish and pro-Israel events. He had a passion for environmental preservation, addressed several Jewish National Fund gatherings, and lent his royal sponsorship to other Jewish causes. He came under attack in the 1960s for speaking to pro-Israel groups, and, famously impervious to criticism, ignored it.
Princess Alice and the Cohen family
Prince Philip flew into Ben Gurion Airport in October 1994 in a private plane, with his older sister, Princess Sophie. He was welcomed by Israel’s education minister, Amnon Rubinstein, and was hosted during the trip by then-president Ezer Weizman.
At Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Philip planted a maple tree in memory of his mother, who was married to Prince Andrew of Greece and helped shelter three members of the family of a late Greek-Jewish politician in her palace in Athens.
The Gestapo was suspicious of Alice, even questioning her, but the princess, who was deaf, pretended not to understand their questions
The Gestapo was suspicious of Alice, even questioning her, but the princess, who was deaf, pretended not to understand their questions. She hid the Cohen family members for 13 months during the Nazi occupation of Greece. Alice later became a nun.
On his visit, Philip met with members of the Cohen family his mother had hidden.
“The Holocaust was the most horrific event in all Jewish history, and it will remain in the memory of all future generations,” Philip said at the time.
It is a very generous gesture that also remembered here [at Yad Vashem] are the many millions of non-Jews, like my mother, who shared in your pain and anguish and did what they could in small ways to alleviate the horror
“It is, therefore, a very generous gesture that also remembered here are the many millions of non-Jews, like my mother, who shared in your pain and anguish and did what they could in small ways to alleviate the horror.”
“God brings everything we do to judgment,” the prince wrote in the visitors’ book at Yad Vashem.
The ceremony at Yad Vashem in honor of Princess Alice, 30 October 1994. Prince Philip, right, with his sister Princess Sophie of Hanover in the Hall of Remembrance (Yad Vashem)
In September of 1943, members of the Cohen family, from the Greek town of Trikala, appealed to Princess Alice for refuge. An acquaintance of theirs, she took them in and hid them until the Nazis withdrew in October 1944.
The story was not known until 1992, when Michel Cohen, then 78, told officials at Yad Vashem of how he, his mother and sister were saved by the princess.
The surviving members of the Cohen family now live in France. They flew to Israel to attend the 1994 ceremony.
Britain’s Prince Philip escorts his mother, Princess Alice Andreas of Greece, in the wedding procession of Princess Margarita of Baden and Prince Tomislav of Yugoslavia after the religious ceremonies on June 5, 1957 at Salem, Germany. (AP Photo)
Prior to the ceremony, Philip visited the crypt in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives, where his mother’s coffin lies. Princess Alice died in 1969. In 1988, she was reinterred at the Russian Orthodox church in accordance with her dying wishes.
‘Replace that stone’
During Philip’s visit to Israel, he also met with Jewish veterans who had fought with the British in World War II and laid a wreath at the Commonwealth war graves cemetery in the city of Ramle during a memorial service for British troops who fell in both world wars.
“The only words that could be heard from the Duke of Edinburgh at the cemetery were directed at a British official escorting him,” the UPI news agency reported. “‘There’s a crack in that stone. It needs to be replaced,’ the prince said sternly. ‘Yes, of course,’ the official responded.”
The 1994 visit broke with what was then an unofficial but nonetheless binding ban on royals traveling to Israel, which had been enforced following violence by Zionist fighters against British targets in the years that predated the establishment of the State of Israel in what had been before 1948 the British Mandate over Palestine.
During his stay, Philip stayed in the King David Hotel, which was bombed by the Jewish underground during the British mandate.
As UPI put it, he was “the first member of the royal family to visit Israel since the Jewish state shed colonial rule.”
His family followed
For all its trappings, Philip’s 1994 visit was in a personal capacity. The royal family only changed its policy on official visits to Israel almost a quarter of a century later, in 2018, when Prince William, Prince Philip’s grandson, visited Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan. During that trip, William visited Princess Alice’s tomb.
Britain’s Prince William visits the grave of his great-grandmother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, during a visit to the Mary Magdalene Church, in East Jerusalem, on June 28, 2018. (AFP PHOTO / POOL / Sebastian Scheiner)
Philip’s son Prince Charles subsequently also made a visit to the tomb of Princess Alice, in January 2020, when he visited Israel to attend the World Holocaust Forum, which was attended by dozens of other world leaders and coincided with the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
Britain’s Prince Charles, center, visits the tomb where his grandmother Princess Alice is buried at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene at the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel, Friday, Jan. 2020. (Neil Hall/Pool Photo via AP)
Philip’s retirement from public life in 2017 triggered an outpouring of plaudits for a life well-lived from Israeli and Jewish groups and leaders.
Those groups expressed grief upon his death Friday.
UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis sent the “most profound condolences” on behalf of Jews in the Commonwealth. “I enjoyed immensely my personal conversations with the Duke of Edinburgh, during which I was deeply moved by his extraordinary sense of duty. A remarkable Royal, working well into his 90s, he became a role model for staying active in one’s later years and demonstrated an unwavering sense of responsibility to our country,” Mirvis said.
He added: “We remember the Duke’s interaction with, and affection for, the Jewish community in the UK and his connection with Israel, where his mother is buried and which he visited in 1994.”
Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin joined dozens of other heads of state who expressed their sympathies. Rivlin used the traditional Jewish phrase when speaking about a deceased person, ending his tweet about Philip with “May his memory be a blessing.”
In this file photo taken on July 17, 2002, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Britain’s Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh chat while seated during a musical performance in the Abbey Gardens, Bury St. Edmunds, during her Golden Jubilee visit to Suffolk, east of England. (Fiona HANSON / POOL / AFP)
@ peloni1986:
Yes, the British was driven crazy by the resistance of the handful of despised Jews, and were doing terrible things. The scandal of the Exodus is well known, and pictures of the barbed wire concentration camps on Cyprus, with the”rescued” Jews still in their striped clothing, were well distributed. It was a shanda to the whole world. But the implacable British ignored everyone. That dog Bevin, (whose best friend Richard Mayhew said, “I have no doubt but the Ernest detests Jews”) was out of his mind half the time,and the other half was tearing his hair out, trying to think how to hand the Arabs all Palestine..
There were also some very despicable acts committed by Jews against Jews. Like the Hagana spying on the Irgun members and giving them over to the British, “The Saison”… and that horror of the Altalena. Rabin committed the murders with his men, but Ben Gurion gave the orders to Rabin. I’ve never forgiven him for that.
In our own Dublin Community I knew people just like him, Brutal when resisted, hard as rock, unforgiving and relentless until death. But in Dublin, certain rules of conduct had to be observed, to keep the Community together amid nearly 3 million Verbrente Catholics, anti-semites all. In Israel, Ben Gurion could lord it over everyone. And did.
Thinking about your kind remark, yes, I have many stories, but I;m sure everyone has them. It’s just that I have an excellent mamory, and chance remarks or events remind me of one or more. That another can find them interesting, is very gratifying.
@ Edgar G.:
Edgar, you always have very interesting tales to share. Thank you…
You were lucky, I think, one way or the other – as I say, the British are bad, actually pretty vicious, losers.
Those were such terribly harsh times.
@ peloni1986:
Yes how right. The recollection of the massacre of the drs and nurses on their way to the Hadassah hospital,whilst the British Military, less than 100 yards away, just stood and watched. springs to mind. Just one, amongst the very many instances. Also the “Palestine Police” who were notoriously known to have been formerly from the Irish Civil War British thugs named “The Black and Tans”., who had been taken mostly from prisons. Horrendously cruel and merciless..
A little anecdote here. I happened to have been in Leeds staying with an Aunt, in the year the 2 British Sergeants, who had also kidnapped, tortured and murdered a 16 year old Yeshiva boy, were hanged by the Irgun. This was in reprisal for 3 Irgun men whom the British hanged for possessing weapons.
It was Christmas eve, months later, with open Anti-Semitism, very common. and with several friends we went out to drink beer. It was in that large hotel bar near the major railway station, don’t recall it’s name. One guy, very drunk, stumbled over my foot nearly upsetting our table. He became very belligerant and saw that we were all Jews, my friends generally being small, dapper, well dressed etc. This guy, pushed on a “come outside ” diatribe along with many Jew-cursing epithets. . I was a successful amateur boxer then. and it was a tenet that we never got into fights outside the ring,
I looked at my friends…. the couple near me, brothers pulled down their very lumpy leather gloves and showed they actually had knuckledusters there, the first I’d ever seen.
(reminds me of Levinsky at theVedding…”dressed to kill, vy shouldn’t she, her husband’s a butcher”..)
So we all went outside, We were squaring up when the circle was broken by a friend of the bully, He was huge, cauliflower ears, broken nose, like a hard used front row Rugby forward. I thought my last moment had arrived. But…in very mild, polite terms, he asked pardon for his friend, whom, he said, was drunk and didn’t mean it.. And then lugged him away. Haven’t thought about this for many years.
@ Edgar G.:
You are correct in so describing the British. Additionally they did everything they could in the closing months to their mandate to remove any means of defense to the Jews while not only training the Arab Legion but also allowing it to be staffed with British officers. They were always on the other side of the debate, gracing Israel with only an abstention during the UN membership vote(and I believe that was due to a stinging speech by Churchill just prior to the vote). Only recently, and not uniformly(note they voted in favor of condemning the US embassy in Jerusalem move), have they adopted a more friendly stance towards Israel as Adam describes.
A good friend from England once told me that “Britain never loses gracefully, probably due to the fact that we haven’t had the opportunity to practice it much.”
One visit in 99 years…Not bad very nonconformist for a British Royal..
A point…Over the many years since the re-establishment of Israel, there have been multitudes of articles, mostly very critical for the outstanding, very noticeable absense of even a singel visit from a British Royal rep. It seemed a stubborn holding of a grudge that Israel caused the circumstances which resulted in throwing off the Mandate….. They were ALWAYS VERY pro Arab, and anti Jew. History amply shows us this.
Many do’nt know this or don’t recall…I do.
It is interesting and worth mentioning that the first official royal visits to Israel have taken place since Boris Johnson became Britain’s prime minister. Has often been critized for not being pro-Israel enough by Jews. But he nevertheless has done more to legitimate Israel in the eyes of the British public and its ruling establishment than any previous British prime minister. He has also repeatedly condemned antisemitism ,accepted the IHRC definition of antisemitism, which defines extreme and disproportionate hostility to Israel as a “symptom” and sign of antisemitism. He also persuaded the majority in parliament to adopt a resolution endorsing the IHRC definition.
Thank you, Ted, for posting this article. The relationship between the British (and Canadian) Queen and Israel has been, to put it delicately, “complicated”; and this article shows it in its best light. Whatever people’s opinions about Prince Philip, at least this is real “news” in a generation identifying that word completely with partisan politics and fakery.
Philip was descended of the House of Battenberg, an etherial “principality” that existed only on paper. The actual male ancestor of the house was probably the chamberlain of a Hessian dutchess. From these humble beginnings, descendants of this house include current and former monarchs of The UK, India, Burma, Russia, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, Denmark, Sweden and Spain; and when combined with Elizabeth II’s lines is tied to the ruling houses of Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and Germany. Through them, Charles, Prince of Wales, is a not-too-distant cousin of all the current major ruling houses of Europe and the Commonwealth.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battenberg_family
I posted two articles on Prince Phillip.
I lived in Canada for the first 69 years of my life and knew nothing about what is contained in these articles.