For the rest of the war, Leopold was held under house-arrest in the Palace of Laeken.[21] In 1941, while still incarcerated, he married Mary Lilian Baels, undermining his popularity with the Belgian public, which disliked Baels and considered the marriage to discredit his claim to martyr status.[2] Despite his position, he remained prominent in the occupied territory, and coins and stamps continued to carry his portrait or monogramme.[22] While imprisoned, he sent a letter to Hitler in 1942 credited with saving an estimated 500,000 Belgian women and children from forced deportation to munitions factories in Germany.[23] In January 1944, Leopold was moved to Germany where he remained for the rest of the war.[24]