the crash of 1929. With their resources completely depleted, they sold their house in Cap-d'Ail on 4 February 1929, moving the next day to Paris. There they settled in the Villa Molitor in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. To provide for the family, Kschessinska opened a ballet school in 1929 in a studio close to their house. Her students included some of the greatest classical ballet dancers of all time: Margot Fonteyn, Alicia Markova, André Eglevsky, Tatiana Riabouchinska and Tamara Toumanova. Last years During the 1930s, Mathilde's ballet school prospered, allowing Grand Duke Andrei and his family to have a comfortable, yet modest life. He helped with the financial part of running the school, but continued to be afflicted by ill health due to his weak lungs. Although uninterested in politics, he continued to actively support a number of organization; he headed the Guard association, the Russian Historical and Genealogical Society in Paris and he was an honorary chairman of the union of Izmaylovsky Regiment. Andrei Vladimirovich also kept in touch with his Romanov relatives, particularly his brothers and many of his cousins, such as Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, Jr. and Prince Gabriel Constantinovich. His relationship with his sister, Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, became strained as she never truly accepted Mathilde as a member of the family. At the outbreak of World War II, under the threat of a German bombing of Paris, Grand Duke Andrei and his family moved to Le Vésinet. They returned after three months. Following the German invasion of France, they fled by train to Grand Duke Boris's Villa in Biarritz. On 26 June, the Germans reached Biarritz and after three months the two couples decided to return to Paris. As their only source of income was the ballet school, they had to keep it opened during the war years in spite of difficulties and decreased attendance. Prince Vladimir Romanovsky-Krasinsky (who took a Westernized version of his mother's Polish name, Krzesińska, hyphenated with the adjective version of his father's name) was spoiled by his parents and never had an independent life. Because he had been a member of the "pro-Soviet " Union of Young Russians in the 1930s, he was regarded as Soviet sympathizer by the Nazi Party. Vladimir was arrested by the Gestapo and held in a camp for Russian emigrants in Compiègne. Grand Duke Andrei visited German Police