‘MY FATHER KNEW HE WOULD NEVER RETURN TO YUGOSLAVIA, HIS SON’S DEATH DESTROYED HIM’ – Jelisaveta Karađorđević’s Story Of 27 March, Youth, Arranged Marriage

Once upon a time, I was born in a grand white palace on the very edge of Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia. That palace is called the White Palace. I was the only girl in a house full of boys. My father was Prince Pavle, who served as the Regent of Yugoslavia from 1934 to 1941.

Summers in Slovenia

During the summers, we would go to Slovenia, to Brdo near Kranj. There, we stayed in a grand 15th-century Austrian castle that my father had purchased. I loved running around the garden with my Scottish terrier, Pipi. We often went to the lakeshore. I always brought a few apples with me, and as soon as we arrived at the shore, I would call Ivica and Marica, two little spotted deer, who would hop over to me. I would feed them apples, which they nibbled on with delight. Ivica was blind from birth, but fortunately, his sister Marica was always by his side, helping him avoid bumping into trees. They were completely tame and enjoyed being with me because I was small too, so they weren’t afraid of me.

First Mischiefs

At the White Palace, on the outskirts of Belgrade, my two brothers, Alexander and Niki (Nikola), each had a small electric car, called a 'mali auto', with powerful batteries under the back seat. They were both very proud of their cars and certainly didn’t want their little sister meddling with their treasure. However, I longed to sit behind the wheel of one of those cars. So, one day, when no one was watching, I jumped into one. I had carefully observed how Niki started the engine, so I simply repeated his actions. To my delight, the car quickly moved forward, and I found myself on the road. In that moment, I heard shouting and saw my nanny and a guard, Policeman Bradić, running after me. Bradić caught up with me and managed to turn off the engine. He pulled me out of the car and handed me over to the nanny, who was breathless from running uphill. I was very proud and happy that I had managed to escape and drive quite far before they finally caught me.

Escape from Belgrade

My childhood in Yugoslavia was very happy. Like most children, I loved listening to stories being told or read to me. The greatest pleasure was when my brother Alexander read them to me. He was my big brother, and I adored him. He was also King Alexander’s favourite, even more than his own son Peter. My brother and the king got along wonderfully because, like him, he loved hunting and marksmanship.

And so, on the evening of 27 March 1941, I sat in Alexander’s lap, listening to the story The Little Red Dragon. I knew the story by heart, but my attention was constantly distracted by the loud noises coming from outside the room and the sound of hurried footsteps. That morning, a military coup had taken place in Belgrade, almost without bloodshed. In fact, had it not been for the death of one brave guard at the palace, it could have been considered a completely bloodless coup. Some of the rebellious officers arrested my father, and his government was overthrown.

My mother suddenly rushed into my room, dressed me in a blue coat, knee-high socks, and a hat, even though it was already quite late. My nanny grabbed my special plush teddy bear and my panda and started packing some of my clothes into a travel bag. My mother’s Greek maid, Urania, stuffed some of my mother’s old jumpers into a suitcase. My mother was running from room to room, already dressed in her coat, begging us to hurry. We were given only four hours to pack and leave Belgrade that same evening—otherwise, we would be executed.

I Was Confused

My parents, my two brothers—Alexander, who was 16, and Niki, who was 12—and our two maids, Urania and Milka, rushed down the stairs. Each of us embraced Peter, the 17-year-old standing at the entrance in tears. Peter begged my father to take him with us, but my father told him it wasn’t possible because, as the crown prince, he was now responsible for the state. I leaned on my nanny’s gloved hand because I was tired, confused, and frightened.

I watched my father salute the gathered crowd in a military fashion before stepping into the car with dignity. No one told me what was happening, where we were going, or why.

Shortly after, we arrived at Topčider railway station, just below the White Palace, where we waited for my father’s train. It was around 11 p.m., and I remember raindrops trickling down the awning of the dimly lit platform. We shivered in the freezing rain, huddled close together. A few soldiers stood nearby, talking about some people coming to kill us. At the time, I didn’t realise they were referring to my family and me.

Refugee

Two days later, we arrived in Athens, just a few days before my fifth birthday on 7 April. We stayed briefly with my grandmother, my mother’s mother—Her Imperial and Royal Highness Grand Duchess Elena Romanova of Russia, widow of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, son of Greek King George I and daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir, uncle of Russian Tsar Nicholas II. She was very dominant and commanding, and my mother had always lived in fear of her. My father had an understanding conversation with the Greek king but a very unpleasant one with my grandmother, who considered him no longer a suitable son-in-law and wanted my mother to leave him. My mother refused.

My father hoped we would go to England or at least stay in Greece for some time. A few days after my fifth birthday, the British arranged a flight for us from Athens to Cairo, where, after a short stay, we were supposed to travel to Kenya. We were met by Terence Shone, the first secretary at the British embassy, and Peter Coote. They were kind to us, even though the British governor, Sir Miles Lampson, had received orders not to take us in. In a very short time, he found us a house, though it was small and very dirty. He sent a telegram to Eden, stating that he wanted to provide better care for our family, but Eden replied, ‘There is nothing Their Royal Highnesses can justifiably complain about.’ After two weeks, they sent us to Kenya.

IN THE KENYAN DESERT

We flew in a Dakota DC3 aeroplane, where the cabin pressure was not regulated, so I felt extremely unwell during the three-day journey to East Africa. We arrived there on 27 April, my father’s 48th birthday. (His birthday was actually on 15 April according to the old calendar, as he was born in 1893.) At that moment, we did not know that Sir Henry Moore, the British Governor of Kenya, had received instructions similar to those previously given to the Governor of Cairo: he was to treat us as political prisoners.

We were assigned a dilapidated villa called Oserian. It had once served as a club where alcohol was served and had belonged to the controversial playboy Joslyn Victor Hay, Lord Erroll. It was located 70 miles from Nairobi, near Lake Naivasha. We drove endlessly along a road full of potholes through a landscape in pale brown and yellowish hues, with the occasional thorn tree. I felt nauseous again. We stayed at the Norfolk Hotel in Nairobi, where the cross I had received at my christening was stolen.

Two soldiers stood guard at the gate of our new home because it was a house arrest—essentially a form of imprisonment. There was no telephone in the house, the electricity supply was weak, and there were no shops, libraries, pharmacies, or churches anywhere nearby. This neglected villa, which had been uninhabited since the time Lord Erroll was murdered, was nothing more than a ruined tavern, once notorious as the “palace of mischief for white men."

The roof leaked, the water running from the taps was brown and dirty, the bed linen was rough and completely torn, and the blankets were burnt with cigarette holes.

Every evening at six o’clock, a large hippopotamus would emerge from the lake and wander through the garden. I was utterly fascinated by the footprints it left on the lawn. At night, the hippos would thunder noisily around, and I often had nightmares in which these ugly, fat creatures chased me, baring their large, terrifying teeth.

Fortunately, my little dog Pipi, a Scottish Terrier, was always with me, and soon I got a cat as well. I also missed my older brothers. Alexander had gone to flight school because he wanted to fly for the British Royal Air Force in combat operations. Niki was attending an agricultural college.

My mother gave me French lessons. My Serbian slowly faded, soon replaced by Swahili, which I found much more enjoyable than French. In fact, I refused to learn French until I was fifteen, when I was sent to a French school and had no choice.

FOR THE ENGLISH, MY FATHER WAS A CRIMINAL

My uncle George, Duke of Kent, died on 25 August 1942, when the plane he was flying to Norway on a military mission crashed in the Scottish Highlands. It was a devastating blow to our family, particularly to my father, as Uncle George had been a close friend and one of the few people who, in those days, had tried to defend my father against British public opinion, which regarded him as a traitor. They corresponded frequently, and Uncle George did everything he could to ease our situation in Kenya. As the brother of King George VI and a highly respected figure in British society, he was in a position to help, even though it was by no means easy. Europe was at war, and due to British propaganda, my father was seen as a collaborator of Hitler.

Uncle George managed to send us some money during those difficult days, as our situation was truly dire. We had left Yugoslavia with practically nothing. Meanwhile, the British Foreign Office had decided that my father was responsible for paying the maintenance costs of the house and our living expenses in Kenya, even though they knew full well that we had no more than £200. The British government was supposed to pay the rent, which would have made it clear that this was, in essence, a form of imprisonment. Paradoxically, when it came to taxes, my father was treated as a British citizen, yet in every other respect, he was treated as a prisoner.

At the end of summer 1942, my mother received permission from the British Foreign Office to travel to England to visit her sister Marina, Duchess of Kent, who had just lost her husband and become a widow. My mother’s arrival in England prompted Captain Alec Stratford Cunningham-Reid, a member of the House of Commons, to raise the issue of her presence in Britain. He argued that there was reason to fear she might convey information useful to the Axis powers to her husband, the quisling, upon returning to Kenya. The press eagerly seized the opportunity to once again put Prince Pavle in the spotlight and remind the public of his alleged betrayal.

My father stopped reading the newspapers and took to his bed; he even stopped going to Nairobi. In Kenya, there were many who shared Cunningham-Reid’s views. The situation, fuelled by Cunningham-Reid’s statements in England, became so explosive that even Sir Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary, was eventually forced to intervene in Parliament. He reminded them that the Duchess of Kent was in deep mourning for her husband’s death and that my mother was her only sister, who had come to offer comfort during this difficult time. He also stated that all permissions for my mother’s stay had been granted with the approval of the British government and that he saw no reason to apologise to anyone. The House of Commons responded to Eden’s statement with thunderous applause.

FAREWELL, AFRICA!

King George VI’s visit to the Union of South Africa in April 1947 symbolically marked the end of our stay in Africa. My parents, who had been married by the king on 23 October 1923 in Belgrade, were delighted by the visit. For me, it was an opportunity to meet South African Prime Minister, Field Marshal Smuts, and his sisters, who spoke Afrikaans. One of them claimed to constantly see little people dancing around her chair. She was so convincing that I began to believe I could see them too.

The excitement peaked when the king, his wife Elizabeth, and their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, arrived in Johannesburg on 5 April 1947. My parents met privately with the royal couple. I did not meet them then—I was in the crowd, frantically waving a small paper Union Jack. At that moment, I did not realise that I was not just waving at the British sovereign but also saying goodbye to Africa, where I had spent seven years.

We stayed in Greece for the entire summer, and in autumn, we travelled to Geneva to meet my father, who had finally received a South African passport and permission to leave Africa and go wherever he wished.

Niki was still attending university, making him the last member of our family to leave Africa.

The sky over Geneva was grey, and the weather was cold. My governess struggled with my French, and I resisted learning as much as I could. One gloomy evening at the hotel, I asked my father once again if we would ever be able to return to Yugoslavia.

  "No, we will never be able to return,” my father told me. “Last year, Tito’s government declared all of us, including you, enemies of the state! This means we have no property, no citizenship, and no passport. They have taken everything we owned, including my private art collection in the White Palace."

From Geneva, we moved to Montreux. The sun had set on my childhood in Yugoslavia and Africa, and I was sent to a boarding school in Clarens, near Montreux, on Lake Geneva. I liked that boarding school.

  They called me Elizabeth George (Đorđe); no one could pronounce Karađorđević, and they deliberately skipped the addition of 'princess' so as not to highlight my origin. School was a true paradise, full of interesting girls from all over the world. A wealthy Israeli girl was mercilessly teased because she did not know how to make her bed. We all had to learn how to fold and tighten the bedding so that a perfect 'hospital corner' was made on the bed.

Marriage

When I was sixteen and a half, I spent part of my summer holiday in London. I always went to parties with Niki; he was my escort. Although I adored my brilliant father, communication with my parents had become exhausting. They both hoped I would marry King Baudouin of Belgium. But since I was a chubby sixteen-year-old and not a Catholic, that plan quickly fell through. The king was intelligent and musical. He sent me a record of Bach’s preludes to Paris. My father made it clear that he would disinherit me if I married someone he did not approve of.

The Death of My Brother

Then everything went wrong. One April morning in 1954, I woke up in my small room in Paris, squeezed between my parents’ bedrooms. My skin was covered in spots. I had caught chickenpox—just when I had planned to travel to England and celebrate my eighteenth birthday there on 7 April! I couldn’t believe this was happening to me—just my luck.

My mother was in Copse Hill with Aunt Marina, while I, covered in pox marks and grumpy over my ruined birthday, remained in Paris with my father. I thought nothing worse could happen. A few days later, dawn broke on that fateful 12 April 1954.

That night, at two in the morning, the phone rang. When the phone rings at that hour, it can never be good. The voice on the other end told me, “Niki has died in a car accident on the road from Copse Hill to London, about ten kilometres from our aunt’s house. He was alone in the car.”

Much later, with the help of Queen Elizabeth II, I managed to obtain police reports about Niki’s death, as I had previously been told fabricated stories that he had been murdered. In the car accident, Niki was injured and lost consciousness, but he fell head-first onto the ground, and his face ended up in a puddle. There was no one there to help him, and he suffocated in that water. If I had not caught chickenpox, I would have gone to Copse Hill, and Niki would not have been alone in the car.

I stood frozen, holding the receiver in my hand. It was one of the hardest moments of my life. I woke my father. I told him the tragic news. I don’t even know how I did it—I think I wasn’t even aware of what I was saying. I just kept repeating the same sentences I had heard through the telephone receiver. My father turned pale, stiffened, completely in shock. This destroyed him. I don’t remember him ever being so inconsolable, so unhappy, so lost.

His favourite son, his beloved Niki. Intelligent, talented, witty. He loved sports, good cars, women, and had an affinity for the arts. He and my father always understood each other well.

The Funeral

Dark days followed. The funeral was held in a small church near Copse Hill on 17 April 1954. When they lowered the coffin into the ground, I wished I could die. Just looking at my parents was enough to completely break me. “Niki is gone,” echoed in my head. “I will never see him again. Never again..."

Niki’s coffin was later, after my father’s death, transferred to Lausanne and buried in the Bois-de-Vaux Cemetery, next to my father, where my mother was later laid to rest as well.

Our house in Paris became like a tomb. Music was never allowed in the house again. But who even felt like listening to music? Despite all the hardships we had been through, no one was prepared for this. The worst deaths are the sudden ones—without a farewell, without a goodbye, without a final glance or word. This sense of unfinished closure only deepens the loss and despair.

My mother wore mourning clothes for years because, nine months after Niki’s death, she lost her middle sister, my Aunt Vuli, and two years later, she lost her own mother.

My education was over. My dreams of going to England had been shattered. A time of sorrow and silence began.

Escape to America

The rare moments of joy were provided by visits to museums and galleries, where I went with my father. I was too young to understand that, for him, this was also an escape from the grim reality...

I packed my suitcase and prepared to escape to the land of my dreams—the United States of America! With just a few belongings in my suitcase, I went to my cousin Helena’s house, which was near Orly Airport. My mother was in Greece, so I left a farewell note for my father. I wrote that I could no longer endure the tension in the house, that otherwise, I would go mad, and that I had to start a new life.

End of Part 1