upbringing, with Polish as their first language. Both parents also fully supported independent Poland. Her husband supported Polish organisations and donated money and machine-guns to the Polish Army. Alice Habsburg would later, to the Gestapo, state her nationality as "Polish". She has also stated that to give her children a Polish upbringing "was a simple act of loyalty to the country that had opened its borders to us and given us back our property and standing". World War II When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939 Alice's husband joined the Polish army. Alice remained at the estate at Żywiec. On 3 September German soldiers reached the estate and began to use it as a barracks. Officers from the SS and Gestapo followed suit and interrogated Alice for the first time. She believed her husband and children were safe at the estate in Busk, but when the Soviet Union also invaded Poland she left Żywiec to try to find them. Eventually her three sons managed to flee the country and later joined the Polish Armed Forces in the West. Her husband was arrested by the Nazi German authorities and sent to prison. Both he and his wife were pressed to give up their loyalties to Poland and instead join or support the Nazi regime, but both refused. Because of this Karl Albrecht was kept imprisoned in Cieszyn until December 1941, when he was released due to health reasons and international pressure. Alice had petitioned the Swedish Government and Sven Hedin to work for the release of her husband, and several royal or ex-royal families in Europe had done the same. Some time after the German invasion, Alice Habsburg joined the Polish resistance organization, the Union of Armed Struggle (later transformed into the Home Army). She was likely appalled by the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime against the population as much as by her own and her husband's experiences. On several occasions she witnessed the public executions of partisans. Until early autumn 1940 she was allowed to remain in the palace of Żywiec, but was restricted to one room and kept under surveillance. While living there she witnessed how the palace was systematically plundered by Nazi authorities. In an interrogation by the Gestapo in 1942, she would state that "that you have seized our private property is something I still consider an act of violence and a great injustice" and furthermore