Illness and Death
From the mid-1990s, Juliana's health declined and she also suffered the progressive onset of senility. Juliana did not appear in public after this time. At the order of the Royal Family's doctors, Juliana was placed under 24-hour care. Prince Bernhard publicly admitted in a television interview in 2001 that she was no longer able to recognise her family.
Juliana died in her sleep on 20 March 2004, several weeks before her 95th birthday, at Soestdijk Palace in Baarn from complications of pneumonia, exactly 70 years after her grandmother Emma.
She was embalmed (unlike her mother, who chose not to be) and on 30 March 2004 interred beside her mother, Wilhelmina, in the royal vaults under the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. The memorial service made her ecumenical and often highly personal views on matters of religion public. The late Princess, a vicar told in her sermon, was interested in all religions and in reincarnation. Juliana's husband, Prince Bernhard, died barely eight months after her, on 1 December 2004, aged 93 and his remains were placed next to hers.
In 2009, an exhibition of portraits of Juliana, and objects from her life, was held at the Het Loo Palace to mark the centenary of her birth.
Read more about this topic: Juliana Of The Netherlands
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“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
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—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)