Sofka Skipwith

Sofka Skipwith (born Sophia Dolgorukova; 23 October 1907 – 26 February 1994) was a Russian princess, who after working for Laurence Olivier and being interned by the Nazis in France in World War II, worked to save Jews from the Holocaust. She was honoured for her efforts by both the British government and by Israel, where she has been named one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. Life Childhood Skipwith was the only child of Prince Peter Dolgorouky and Countess Sophy Bobrinskaya (of House Bobrinsky). Her parents were married in 1907 in a service at a private church in the Winter Palace, followed by a service at the Bobrinsky Palace; the Romanov imperial family were in attendance. Skipwith's granddaughter in her biography Red Princess: A Revolutionary Life repeats her grandmother's claim that the "wedding was considered the most brilliant of the 1907 season." On her father's side, Skipwith was descended from Rurik, Prince of Novgorod, but also from a Greek slave-girl whom a Polish count won from an Austrian prince in a card game. Skipwith's paternal grandfather, "Sandik," was Grand Marshal of the Imperial Court and Master of Ceremonies; Skipwith remembered him as ""a rather terrifying figure.'"