When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Alice's husband joined the Polish army. Alice remained at the estate at Żywiec. Already on 3 September, German soldiers reached the estate and began to use it as a barracks. Officers from SS and Gestapo followed suit and interrogated Alice Habsburg for the first time. Alice Habsburg believed her husband and children were safe at the estate in Busk, but when the Soviet Union also invaded Poland, she left