The Prince of Wales has visited the tomb of his "inspirational" paternal grandmother, Princess Alice, during his first trip to Jerusalem.

She was honoured by Jewish people for humanitarian efforts in Nazi-occupied Athens during World War Two.

She died in 1969, aged 84, and was buried near her aunt at the Church of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem.

Princess Alice of Battenberg was born at Windsor Castle on February 25, 1885. Her mother was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, and her father was Prince Louis of Battenberg. Alice's relation to Queen Victoria makes Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip distant cousins.

She was deaf from birth but could speak three languages—English, German, and French, and reportedly learned to read lips in multiple languages as well.

As a combat nurse, she set up field hospitals during the Balkan Wars. In 1913, her work assisting in operations and establishing field hospitals earned her the Royal Red Cross military decoration.

In 1903, Princess Alice married Prince Andrew of Greece, and the two subsequently had four daughters and a son, Philip. The family lived in Greece but by 1916 the country was in political turmoil and they were forced to leave when Andrew's brother King Constantine I abdicated the throne over disagreements on whether Greece should enter WWI.

Though they eventually returned, Prince Andrew was arrested and tried for allegedly abandoning his military duties during the September 22 Revolution. After his stay of execution, Alice and her family fled Greece once more (Prince Philip was just an infant at the time), heading to Paris. All of this turmoil led to a rocky marriage between Alice and Andrew; by the end of the 1920s, Princess Alice announced her commitment to the Greek Orthodox church and became deeply religious.

Princess Alice suffered what was then referred to as a "nervous breakdown" in 1930, after many years of upheaval and stress. She began to experience delusions. Princess Alice was forcibly committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland, where she received experimental treatments for schizophrenia. The famous Sigmund Freud thought she had sublimated an unrequited love for an unknown man, and turned it into a romantic passion for Jesus Christ. Freud decided to X-ray Princess Alice's ovaries to "cool her down" and hasten menopause. Poor Alice eventually discharged herself from the sanatorium, but unbeknownst to her young son Philip, her mother Victoria had her forcibly recommitted. The stigma around mental illness, and a wish to protect the royal family's privacy, left Alice virtually abandoned and hidden away for years.

Alice was finally free on her own accord by 1932, and lived a nomadic existence alone in Germany for the next five years. She didn't see her family again until 1937, when her daughter Cecile was killed in a plane crash (three of Alice's daughters all married German soldiers who fought for Hitler's army). Alice moved back to Greece and wanted Philip to join her, but Philip—who barely knew his mother after years—said no.

In 1943, Greece became Nazi-occupied. Princess Alice gave shelter to the wife, daughter and son of the late Haimaki Cohen, a late Jewish member of Greek Parliament and friend of Alice's. When Nazi soldiers became suspicious, Princess Alice leveraged her deafness to deflect their questions.

Princess Alice was posthumously given the "Righteous Gentile" award by Israel Holocaust museum Yad Vashem in 1993. According to their site, it's in recognition of her brave choice to hide the Cohen family.

Alice eventually channelled her religious fervour and longtime mission of caring for the ill into founding the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary. In footage from Queen Elizabeth II's 1953 coronation, Princess Alice can be seen in the nun's habit that had become her signature .

In 1967, Princess Alice left Greece to move into Buckingham Palace due to her poor health and a political crisis in her adopted home. She would die there two years later at the age of 84.

Just seen this, Omah, thank you so much for posting it. What a beautiful woman - and what a turbulent life!

Her daughters married Nazis I've read. The poor woman was badly treated by her relatives. I expect they saw her as an inconvenience. A cold-hearted lot, the Windsor family.

It is funny I had the impression that the Greek Mountbattens were out and out Nazis and supporters of Hitler. I have no idea where that came from but it was a surprise to find she was buried in Israel