1st person to hold King Charles after his birth was a Jewish Kindertransport refugee

Ingelore Czarlinski, who fled Nazi Germany as a teen, trained as a medical professional; coincidentally, she changed her name to Susan Charles before working for royal obstetrician

The first person to hold King Charles III after his birth was a Jewish woman who escaped Nazi Germany as a teenager and arrived in the United Kingdom as part of a Kindertransport, it was reported Thursday.

Ingelore Czarlinski, 15, and her sister Marion, 11, arrived in the UK on a Kindertransport in July 1939, according to Britain’s Jewish News. The children’s transports saw more than 10,000 Jewish children and teens receive refuge from Nazi Germany in the UK.

In a striking coincidence, Ingelore changed her name to Susan Charles, before she trained as a nurse.

She began to work for obstetrician Sir William Gilliatt, who was chosen to supervise the Caesarean birth of the first child of the then-Princess Elizabeth.

Later writing about her sister’s experience, Marion explained how Susan was summoned to the palace for the birth, and said the nurse held the baby prince until his grandmother arrived.

“On 14 November 1948, I invited my sister to tea at my flat in Clapham. The phone rang and an official voice asked her to ring a Whitehall number immediately. Soon after a car came for her. When she arrived at Buckingham Palace she prepared the princess for delivery,” Marion wrote in the Association of Jewish Refugees magazine in September 2005, according to the Jewish News.

King Charles III during a reception with Realm High Commissioners and their spouses in the Bow Room at Buckingham Palace, London, September 11, 2022. (Victoria Jones/Pool via AP)

“The senior nurse assisted Sir William with the operation and Susan waited in an anteroom with Prince Philip, who told her she reminded him of the beautiful Greek girls he had known when he was young. Eventually, she was called into the delivery room and given Prince Charles to hold until his grandmother, the Queen Mother, took him from her,” Marion wrote.

Marion said Susan was chosen for the job as she was known for her discretion.

In fact, Susan’s daughters did not know that their mother had played such a key role in the royal birth until she was invited to Princess Anne’s 1973 wedding.

“We were naturally surprised and very curious as to why our parents were invited to a royal wedding, so our mother sat us down and explained,” daughter Debra told the newspaper.

Susan and her husband Manny were dating at the time of the royal baby’s birth, and their other daughter Rebecca said that he too had memories of that day.

Prince Charles of Edinburgh, and his mother, Princess Elizabeth, pose for the first informal pictures in Buckingham Palace, April 10, 1949, London, England. (AP)

“Our father always tells the story that he went to the palace gates to meet her when she came out. She later went for tea with the queen and the physician, and they just sat in the palace having sandwiches,” said Rebecca.

According to the report, Susan died in 1994, so when Prince Charles hosted a reception in July 2005 for the surviving Kindertransport children, Marion attended on her own.

“I told him I was lucky to arrive in England 66 years earlier, but that my sister was even luckier as she was the first person in the world to hold him,” Marion wrote.

“He seemed fascinated, so I told him the whole story. At the end of the reception, he said, ‘What a small world it is. Here is the sister of the nurse who looked after me when I was born. She even saw me being bathed. What a sight I must have been!’” she wrote.

King Charles III will be coronated on Saturday in a London ceremony that will use oil consecrated in Jerusalem. The ceremony has been arranged so that British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis can attend without violating Shabbat.