King George resists

Another of George's cousins was the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, a first cousin of George through his mother, Queen Alexandra. Nicholas II's mother was Queen Alexandra's sister. The two men were almost identical in appearance. When the revolution of 1917 toppled the Russian monarchy, George asked his ministers to ensure that the Tsar and his family be saved and brought to Britain for their safety. Worsening conditions for the British people, and fears that revolution might come to the British Isles, led George to develop an atmosphere of austerity around him, and he reversed himself, thinking that the presence of the Romanovs might seem inappropriate under the circumstances. Despite the later claims of Lord Mountbatten of Burma that Lloyd George, the great Liberal, was opposed to the rescue of the Romanovs, records of the King's private secretary, Stamfordham, suggest that he did this against the advice of Lloyd George, who is often wrongly blamed for the loss of the Romanovs. And thus the Tsar and his immediate family remained in Russia and were murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Yekaterinburg.

No they were not ! In fact Jews flourished under Communism occupying high offices particulary in the KGB .
Here is a list of prominent Jewish Communists
V.I. Lenin, maternal Grandfather was Jewish .
Leon Bronstein (Trotsky): supreme commander of the Soviet Red Army.
Grigory Apfelbaum (Zinoviev): executive, Soviet Secret Police.
Solomon Lozovsky: deputy Soviet foreign minister. Maxim Wallach (Litvinov): Soviet foreign minister. Yuri Andropov: director, Soviet KGB, later dictator of the Soviet Union.
Jacob Sverdlov: first president of the Soviet Union.
Jacob Yurovsky: commander, Soviet Secret Police.
Mikhail Kaganovich: deputy commissar of heavy industry,
Genrikh Yagoda: chief of Soviet Secret Police
Matvei Berman and Naftaly Frenkel: founders, the Gulag camp system.
Boris Berman: executive officer of the Soviet Secret Police and brother of Matvei.
K.V. Pauker: chief of operations, Soviet NKVD Secret Police.
M.I. Gay: commander, Soviet Secret Police.
Leiba Lazarevich Feldbin (Aleksandr Orlov): commander, Soviet Red Army; officer, Soviet Secret Police.
Yona Yakir: general, Soviet Red Army, member of the Central Committee.
Dimitri Shmidt: general, Soviet Red Army.
Yakov ("Yankel") Kreiser: general, Soviet Red Army. Miron Vovsi: general, Soviet Red Army.
David Dragonsky: general, Soviet Red Army, Hero of the Soviet Union.
Grigori Shtern: general, Soviet Red Army.
Mikhail Chazkelevich: general, Soviet Red Army.
Shimon Kirvoshein: general, Soviet Red Army.
Arseni Raskin: deputy-commander, Soviet Red Army.
Haim Fomin, commander of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Red Army.
Sergei Eisenstein: director of communist propaganda films .
Ilya Ehrenburg, Minister of Soviet Propaganda
Solomon Mikhoels: commissar of Soviet propaganda.
Soviet propagandist: Yevgeny Khaldei who staged the photo of the raising of the hammer and sickle flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, May 2, 1945.
Nikolai Bukharin: Lenin's chief theorist.
Karl Radek: member, Central Committee.
Mikhail Gruzenberg (Borodin) commissar.
A.A. Yoffe: commissar.
David Ryazanov: advisor to Lenin. Lev
Lev Rosenfeld (Kamenev): member of the Central Committee.
Ivan Maisky: Soviet Ambassador to Britain.
Mark Osipovich Reizen: Soviet propagandist, winner of three Stalin Prizes. Lev Leopold Trepper: Soviet espionage officer.
Bela Kun (Kohen): dictator of Hungary in 1919.
Zakharovich Mekhlis: top executioner for Stalin.
Moshe Pijade: commander, Yugoslav Communist People's Army.
In post-war Poland Jacek Rozanski, head of the Secret Police; the Politboro commander Jacob Berman
and commissars Minc, Specht (Olszewski) and Spychalski.
Julius Hammer, M.D.: co-founder of the American communist party.
Armand Hammer: fundraiser and financier for Lenin and Stalin, son of Julius.
Lev Davidovich Landau: Stalinist physicist, co-father of the Soviet atomic bomb.
Klaus Fuchs: helped steal atomic bomb secrets for Stalin.
Ruth Werner: colonel, Red Army GRU intelligence, assisted Fuchs.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: stole American atomic bomb secrets for Stalin.
Morris Cohen (Peter Kroger): assisted the Rosenbergs.
Markus Wolf: chief of German Communist Stasi Secret Police.
Howard Fast: American communist propagandist for Stalin.
David Dubinsky: Stalin's ally, head of the U.S. International Ladies Garment Workers Union.
Nahum Goldmann: founder, World Jewish Congress, communist propagandist.
Rabbi Moses Rosen: agent, Romanian communist party. Victor Rothschild: top British espionage agent for Stalin.
 

"So even before the outbreak of World War I; the conspirators had a plan, in the making, to carry-out Nathan Rothschild's vow of 1814 to destroy the Czar and also murder all possible royal heirs to the throne and it would have to be done before the close of the war. The Russian Bolsheviks were to be their instruments in this particular plot. From the turn of the century; the chiefs of the Bolsheviks were Nicolai Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and later Joseph Stalin. Of course, those were not their true family names.

Trotsky New York

Prior to the outbreak; Switzerland became their haven. Trotsky's headquarters was on the lower East Side in New York; largely the habitat of Russian-Jewish refugees. Both Lenin and Trotsky were similarly bewhiskered and unkempt. In those days that was the badge of Bolshevism. Both lived well yet neither had a regular occupation. Neither had any visible means of support, yet both always had plenty of money. All those mysteries were solved in 1917. Right from the outset of the war; strange and mysterious goings-on were taking place in New York. Night after night; Trotsky darted furtively in and out of Jacob Schiff's palace-mansion and in the dead of those same nights there were a gathering of hoodlums of New York's lower East Side. All of them Russian refugees at Trotsky's headquarters and all were going through some mysterious sort of training-process that was all shrouded in mystery. Nobody talked; although it did leak out that Schiff was financing all of Trotsky's activities.
 
 

"Then suddenly Trotsky vanished and so did approximately 300 of his trained hoodlums. Actually they were on the high seas in a Schiff-chartered ship bound for a rendezvous with Lenin and his gang in Switzerland. And also on that ship was $20,000,000 in gold; the $20,000,000 was provided to finance the Bolsheviks takeover of Russia. In anticipation of Trotsky's arrival; Lenin prepared to throw a party in his Switzerland hideaway. Men of the very highest places in the world were to be guests at that party. Among them were the mysterious Colonel Edward Mandell House, Woodrow Wilson's mentor and palsy-walsy, and more important; Schiff's special and confidential messenger. Another of the expected guests was Warburg of the Warburg Banking Clan in Germany, who was financing the Kaiser and whom the Kaiser had rewarded by making him chief of the Secret Police of Germany. In addition; there were the Rothschilds of London and Paris also Lithenoth, Kakonavich, and Stalin (who was then the head of a train and bank robbing gang of bandits). He was known as the "Jesse James of the Urals."
 
 

"And here I must remind you that England and France were then long in the war with Germany and that on February 3, 1917; Wilson had broken off all diplomatic relations with Germany. Therefore; Warburg, Colonel House, the Rothschilds, and all those others were enemies but of course; Switzerland was neutral ground where enemies could meet and be friends and especially if they had some scheme in common. That Lenin party was very nearly wrecked by an unforeseen incident. The Schiff-chartered ship on its way to Switzerland was intercepted and taken into custody by a British warship. But Schiff quickly rushed orders to Wilson to order the British to release the ship intact with Trotsky's hoodlums and the gold. Wilson obeyed. He warned the British that if they refused to release the ship; the United States would not enter the war in April as he had faithfully promised a year earlier. The British heeded the warning. Trotsky arrived in Switzerland and the Lenin party went off as scheduled; but they still faced what ordinarily would have been the insurmountable obstacle of getting the Lenin-Trotsky band of terrorists across the border into Russia. Well; that's where Brother Warburg, chief of the German Secret Police, came in. He loaded all those thugs into sealed freight-cars and made all the necessary arrangements for their secret entry into Russia. The rest is history. The revolution in Russia took place and all members of the royal Romanoff family were murdered.
 
 
 

"If anybody still has even a remote doubt that the entire menace of communism was created by the masterminds of the great conspiracy right in our own city of New York; I will cite the following historical fact. All records show that when Lenin and Trotsky engineered the capture of Russia; they operated as heads of the Bolshevik's party. Now "Bolshevism" is a purely Russian word. The masterminds realized that Bolshevism could never be sold as an ideology to any but the Russian people. So in April 1918; Jacob Schiff dispatched Colonel House to Moscow with orders to Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin to change the name of their regime to the Communist Party and to adopt the Karl Marx "Manifesto" as the constitution of the Communist Party. Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin obeyed; and in that year of 1918 was when the Communist party and the menace of communism came into being. All this is confirmed in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Fifth Edition.
 

Chekna Guards

"Not good, I fear." replied Baoudin. "The whole family, plus their entourage, are captive in rooms on the upper floor." Baoudin produced a detailed map of the Ipatiev House. "They are in these rooms, here and here." he said, indicating two rooms located next to one another. "In this one are Nicholas, Alexandra and Alexi, and the Grand Duchesses have the other one. Johan here has infiltrated the house, in the guise of a Red Guard. He has witnessed scenes that -" here he glanced at Johan, who continued the sentence himself "I have no wish to discuss, but suffice it to say that none of the family have any privacy whatsoever - some of the guards even follow them to the lavatory."

"Dear God!" exclaimed Alexei involuntarily, deeply shocked at the disgusting incursion of personal privacy. "Who is in charge?"

"Avadeyev. He's a drunken, thieving rascal, and I think the Cheka are about to replace him. There are rumours ..."

Sverdlov sent one Yankel Yakovlev [as] "Bolshevik commissar to the imperial family." He arrived at Tobolsk, where the Romanoffs were held, April 22, 1918. He could not persuade Nicholas to agree to sanction the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, which Nicholas considered an eternal disgrace to Russia, but he did persuade the ex-Czar to return to Moscow. They got as far as Ekaterinburg, in the Urals, where the train was halted by the Viral Regional Soviet, or revolutionary committee.

Guards changed

One fact of major importance is revealed: the Tsar was not killed by the Russian revolutionaries.

Wilton says that at the beginning of July (1918) "suspicion must have arisen among the Jewish camarilla" that the Russian soldiers guarding the Imperial Family were undergoing a change of attitude. Avdeiev, a Russian who had been in charge of the prison-house and had permitted local nuns to bring a small supply of eggs and milk to the prisoners, was dismissed and the Russian guards moved out of the house to other premises on the other side of the lane. Only one of the Russians remained, the fanatical Bolshevik Pavel Medvedev, who retained his post as chief warder.

These changes were made by Yankel Yurovsky, son of a local Jewish ex-convict and head of the local Cheka. Yurovsky brought with him a squad of ten "Letts" -- so the locals described them -- to mount guard in the crowded prison, hitherto the stately house of a wealthy Jewish merchant, one Ipatiev. They were, in fact, not Letts at all but men of mixed Magyar-German descent, probably brought from Hungary, as their scribblings on the walls indicated.

The Russians were given the task of mounting guard outside the house until the evening of July 16, when all their weapons, Nagan pistols, were collected by Medvedev and handed over to Yurovsky.

Rape and abuse

Monarchists and counter-revolutionaries, and Western and Russian anti-communist historians, have portrayed the last 78 days of captivity in Ekaterinberg as a period of humiliations, abuse, torture and rape by the Bolshevik guards.

Lavatories

The guards were deliberately rude, swearing and telling dirty jokes and following the girls to the lavatory.

Execution order

In 1990, Moscow playwright and historian Edvard Radzinsky announced the result of his detailed investigation into the murders. He unearthed the reminiscences of Lenin's bodyguard, Alexei Akimov, who recounted how he personally delivered Lenin's execution order to the telegraph office. The telegram was also signed by Soviet government chief Yakov Sverdlov. Akimov had saved the original telegraph tape as a record of the secret order.

The Red Power Jewish

The soviet was dominated by "Goloshchekin, Safarov, Voikov and Syromolotov, all four Jews." They used a Russian named Beloborodov as figurehead president, a criminal, threatened by them with exposure and death for hs crime. "He was henceforth a mere straw man, kept in his place to deceive the obstreperous Uralian miners, who did not wish to be ruled from Moscow, much less by Jews."

Goloshchekin was a member of Sverdlov's secret police, the Chrezvychaika, [and] an old comrade and fellow revolutionary of Sverdlov's. Telegrams and records at the telephone exchange, seized by the court of inquiry after the White Russian army captured Ekaterinburg, showed that the soviet was at all times in touch with their Jewish boss, Sverdlov in Moscow.

It was Sverdlov, master of the Chrezvychaika and head of the Tsik, strong man of the Red government, who ordered Yakovlev to take the Romanoffs via Ekaterinburg. Wilton suggests that Sverdlov must have been tipped off by friends in Germany that the German government was secretly planning to oust him and restore the monarchy.

Wilton might have been more specific, for it was well known by the time his book was published that [it was] the German Jewish bankers, the Warburgs (the family which now is so influential over the White House) and the Jewish prime minister of Germany, who induced the Kaiser's government to let the exiled Bolsheviks, Lenin and party, return to Russia through Germany in a sealed train. Sverdlov himself had been associated with the group in Germany and evidently was chosen by them.

Sverdlov, as president of the Tsik, was over the foreign as well as domestic affairs of Sovietism, being in fact, Prime Minister. Taken according to numbers of population, the Jews represented one in ten (in Russia); among the komisors [commissars] that rule Bolshevist Russia they are nine in ten. In addition to Sverdlov, the Chrezvychaika (inquisition) was run by Goloshchekin, Yurovsky, Efremov, Chustkevich and three other Jews.

The Ural Regional Soviet relieved Yakovlev of the prisoners and held them in a local mansion. Presently the commander of the guard, who had been a fanatical anti-Czar revolutionary, began to change, seeing the modest nature of Nicholas and his devotion to Russia and especially his concern for the peasants. He let sisters from a local Catholic institution bring fresh eggs and vegetables to the royal family.

Jewish coverup

This account of a mock trial, based possibly on the trial of 28 persons on a wholly different charge, was widely quoted at the time by Jewish organizations in the West, with the aim of absolving the Bolsheviks of any blame for the murder of the Imperial Family and dispelling the notion of a "Jewish racial vendetta."

In a further attempt to suppress the details of a vitally important chapter of history, the Joint Foreign Committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies and the Anglo-Jewish Association in Britain published an interview with the man who was first entrusted by Admiral Kolchak with the task of finding out exactly what had happened to the Imperial Family. This was Starynkevich, a Jewish lawyer, then Minister of Justice in the Urals region installed by Kerensky's Provisional Government. Starynkevich had appointed one Sergeiev, believed to be another Jew, to carry out the actual investigation. And it was because Sergeiev was making no progress that he was brushed aside and replaced with the magistrate Sokolov.

The former Minister was now quoted as saying that his team of investigators had found no trace whatever of any Jewish involvement in the killing. This was a brazen falsehood and was evidently intended, since it proved nothing, to give Jewish organizations abroad a means of confusing and obscuring the whole issue.

This Starynkevich would have been well aware that the Board of the Ural Regional Council of Deputies responsible for the fate of the Imperial Family consisted of five members: Beloborodov, the Russian "dummy" as president, Goloshchekin, Safarov, Voikov, and Syromolotov, all four Jews, and that the Cheka (Chrezvychaika) was run by Goloshchekin, Efremov, Chustkevich and three other Jews. It was these men who were entrusted with the task of wiping out the Tsarist family; the local Council "representatives of the people," only learned about it four days later.

By a weird quirk of fate, one of the regicides seems to have yielded to an impulse to leave his racial and national signature in the death chamber in the Ipatiev house. Or could it have been purely fortuitous that words written on the wall placed this latest act of regicide firmly in the context of those "2000 years of Jewish religious heritage" mentioned by a modern Russian scholar?

The Soviet authorities in Ekaterinburg comprised:

(a) The Divisional Council of the Urals, consisting of about thirty members under the presidency of Commissary Bieloborodov.

(b) The Presidium, a sort of executive committee of several members Bieloborodov, (Golochtchokin, Syromolotov, Safarov, Voyekov,---all Jews)  etc.

The Soviet authorities in Ekaterinburg comprised: (a) The Divisional Council of the Urals, consisting of about thirty members under the presidency of Commissary Bieloborodov. (b) The Presidium, a sort of executive committee of several members Bieloborodov, Golochtchokin, Syromolotov, Safarov, Voyekov, etc. (c) The Tckrezvytchaika. The popular title of the "Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Speculation," with its centre at Moscow and branches throughout Russia. This is a formidable organisation which is the very foundation of the Soviet regime. Each section receives its orders direct from Moscow and carries them out through its own resources. Every tchrezvytchaika of any importance commands the services of a band of nondescript agents, generally Austro-German prisoners of war, Letts, Chinese, etc., who are in reality nothing more than highly-paid executioners. In Ekaterinburg the Tchrezvytckaika was all-powerful. Its most influential members were Commissaries Yurovsky, Golochtchokin, etc. Avdiev was under the immediate control of the other commissaries, members of the Presidium and Tckrezvytckaika. They were not long in realising the change which had come about in the feelings of the guards towards their prisoners, and resolved to adopt drastic measures. At Moscow, too, there was uneasiness, as was proved by the following telegram sent from Ekaterinburg by Bieloborodov to Sverdlov and Golochtchokin (who was then at Moscow): "Syromolotov just left for Moscow to organise according to instructions from centre. Anxiety unnecessary. Useless to worry. Avdiev revoked. Mochkin arrested. Avdiev replaced by Yurovsky. Inside guard changed, replaced by others." This telegram is dated July 4th. On this day Avdiev and his adjutant Mochkin were arrested and replaced by Commissary Yurovsky, a Jew, and his subordinate Nikulin. The guard formed - as has already been mentioned exclusively of Russian workmen, was transferred to a neighboring house, that of Popov. Yurovsky brought with him ten men - nearly all Austro-German prisoners of war - "selected" from among the executioners of the Tchrezvylchaika. Henceforward these formed the inside guard, the outside sentries being still furnished by the Russian guard. The "house destined for a special purpose" had become a branch of the Tchrezvylchaika, and the lives of the prisoners became one long martyrdom. At this time the death of the Imperial family had already been decided upon in Moscow. The telegram quoted above proves this. Syromolotov left for Moscow "to organise according to instructions from centre"; he was to return with Golochtcholkin, bringing instructions and directions from Sverdlov. Meanwhile Yurovsky made his arrangements. On several days in succession he went but on horseback. He was seen wandering about the neighborhood looking for a place suitable for his plans, in which he could dispose of the bodies of his victims. And this same man, with inconceivable cynicism, on his return visited the bedside of the Tsarevich! Several days pass; Golochtchokin and Syromolotov have come back. All is ready. On Sunday, July 14th, Yurovsky summons a priest, Father Storoyev, and authorizes a religious service. The prisoners are already condemned to death and must not be refused the succour of religion. The next day he gives orders for the removal of little Leonid Sedniev to Popov's house, where the Russian guard are quartered. On the sixteenth, about 7 p.m., he orders Paul Medvedev, in whom he has every confidence. Medvedev was in control of the Russian workmen - to bring him the twelve Nagan revolvers with which the Russian guard are armed. When this order has been carried out he tells him that all the Imperial family will be put to death that same night, directing him to inform the Russian guard later. Medvedev informs them about 10 p.m. Shortly after midnight, Yurovsky enters the rooms occupied by the members of the Imperial family, wakes them up, together with their entourage, and tells them to get ready to follow him. The pretext he alleges is that they are to be taken away, that there are disturbances in the town, and meanwhile they will be safer on the floor below. Everyone is soon ready. They take a few small belongings and some cushions and then go down by the inner staircase leading to the court from which they enter the ground-floor rooms. Yurovsky goes in front with Nikulin, followed by the Tsar, carrying Aleksey Nicolaievich, the Tsarina, the Grand-Duchesses, Dr. Botkin, Anna Demidova, Kharitonov, and Trupp. The prisoners remain in the room indicated by Yurovsky. They are persuaded that the carriages or cars which are to take them away are being fetched, and as the wait may be long they ask for chairs. Three are brought. The Tsarevich, who cannot stand because of his leg, sits down in the middle of the room. The Tsar takes his place on his left, Dr. Botkin standing on his right a little to the rear. The Tsarina sits down near the wall (to the right of the door by which they entered) , not far from the window. A cushion has been placed on her chair and that of Aleksey Nicolaievich. Behind her she has one of her daughters, probably Tatiana. In the corner on the same side Anna Demidova - still holding two cushions in her arms. The three other Grand-Duchesses are standing with their backs to the wall furthest from the door, and in the comer to their right are Kharitonov and old Trupp. The wait is prolonged. Suddenly Yurovsky re-enters the room with seven Austro-Germans and two of his friends, Commissaries Yermakov and Vaganov, accredited executioners of the Tchrezvylchaika. Medvedev is also present. Yurovsky comes forward and says to the Tsar: "Your men have tried to save you but haven't succeeded, and we are forced to put you to death." He immediately raises his revolver and fires point-blank at the Tsar, who falls dead. This is the signal for a general discharge of revolvers. Each of the murderers has chosen his victim. Yurovsky has reserved for himself the Tsar and Tsarevich. For most of the prisoners death is instantaneous. But Aleksey Nicolaievich is moaning feebly. Yurovsky finishes him off with a shot from his revolver. Anastasia Nicolaievna is only wounded, and begins to scream as the murderers approach; she is killed by their bayonets. Anna Demidova, too, has been spared, thanks to the cushions which she holds in front of her. She rushes about, and finally falls under the bayonets of the assassins. The depositions of the witnesses have made it possible for the enquiry to reconstruct the ghastly scene of the massacre in all its details. These witnesses are Paul Medvedev, one of the murderers; Anatole Yakimov, who was certainly present at the drama, although he denies it, and Philip Proskuriakov, who describes the crime from the story of other spectators. All three were members of the guard at Ipatiev's house. When all is over, the commissaries remove from the victims their jewels, and the bodies are carried, with the help of sheets and the shafts of a sledge, to a motor-wagon which is waiting at the courtyard door, between the two wooden fences. They have to hurry for fear of the dawn. The funeral procession crosses the still-sleeping town and makes for the forest. Commissary Vaganov rides ahead, as a chance encounter must be avoided. just as they are approaching the clearing for which they are making, he sees a wagon driven by peasants coming towards him. It is a woman of the village of Koptiaki, who set out in the night with her son and daughter-in-law to sell fish in the town. He orders them to turn round and go home. To make doubly sure he goes with them, galloping alongside the cart, and forbids them under pain of death to turn round or look behind them. But the peasant woman has had time to catch a glimpse of the great dark object coming up behind the horseman. When she gets back to the village she tells what she has seen. The puzzled peasants start out to reconnoiter, and run into a cordon of gentries stationed in the forest. However, after great difficulties, for the roads are very bad, the motor-wagon reaches the clearing. The bodies are placed on the ground and partly undressed. It is then that the commissaries discover a quantity of jewelery that the Grand-Duchesses carry concealed under their clothes. They at once seize them, but, in their haste, let a few fall on the ground, where they are trodden into the soil. The bodies are then cut in pieces and placed on great bonfires, which are made to burn more fiercely by the application of benzine. The parts which resist the flames are destroyed with sulphuric acid. For three days and three nights the murderers toil at their labour of destruction under the direction of Yurovsky and his two friends Yermakov and Vaganov. One hundred and seventy-five kilogrammes of sulphuric acid and more than 300 litres of benzine are brought to the clearing. At last, on July 20th, all is finished. The murderers efface all traces of the fires, and the ashes are thrown into a mine-shaft or scattered about the neighborhood of the clearing, so that nothing may reveal what has taken place. Why did these men take so much trouble to efface all traces of their deed? Why, since they professed to be acting as the servants of justice, did they hide like criminals? And from whom were they hiding? It is Paul Medvedev who explains this in his evidence. After the crime Yurovsky came up to him and said, "Keep the outside sentries at their posts in case there is trouble with the people!" And during the following days the sentries continued to mount guard round the empty house as if nothing had happened, as if the fences still shut in the prisoners. Those who must be deceived, must not know, are the Russian People. Another fact proves this: the precaution taken on July 4th of sending away Avdiev and the Russian guard. The commissaries no longer had confidence In these workmen from the Sissert workshops and the factory of Zlokazov, who had, however, rallied to their cause and enlisted voluntarily to guard "bloody Nicholas." They knew that none but paid assassins, convicts, or foreigners would consent to carry through the infamous task they were proposing. These assassins were Yurovsky (a Jew), Medvedev, Nikulin, Yermakov, Vaganov, Russian convicts, and seven Austro-Germans. Yes, it was from the Russian people that they were hiding, the men whose agents they professed to be. It was of them they were afraid; of their vengeance. At last, on July 20th, they decided to speak and announce the death of the Emperor to the people in a proclamation published in the following form:   DECISION OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE DIVISIONAL COUNCIL OF DEPUTIES OF WORKMEN, PEASANTS, AND RED GUARDS OF THE URALS: In view of the fact that Czecho-Slovakian bands are threatening the Red capital of the Urals, Ekaterinburg; that the crowned executioner may escape from the tribunal of the people (a White Guard plot to carry off the whole Imperial family has just been discovered), the Presidium of the Divisional Committee, in pursuance of the will of the people, has decided that the ex-Tsar Nicholas Romanov, guilty before the people of innumerable bloody crimes, shall be shot. The decision of the Presidium of the Divisional Council was carried into execution on the night of July 16th-17th. Romanov's family has been transferred from Ekaterinburg to a place of greater safety. THE PRESIDIUM OF THE DIVISIONAL COUNCIL OF DEPUTIES OF WORKMEN, PEASANTS, AND RED GUARDS OF THE URALS, DECISION OF THE PRESIDIUM OF THE CENTRAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF ALL THE RUSSIAS OF JULY I8TH, a.c. The Central Executive Committee of the Councils of Deputies of Workmen, Peasants, Red Guards, and Cossacks, in the person of their president, approve the action of the Presidium of the Council of the Urals. The President of the Central Executive Committee, Y. SVERDLOF. In this document mention is made of the sentence of death passed, it is alleged, by the Presidium of Ekaterinburg, on the Tsar Nicholas II. A lie! The crime, we know, was decided on in Moscow by Sverdlov, his instructions being brought to Yurovsky by Golochtchokin and Syromolotov. Sverdlov was the head and Yurovsky the arm; both were Jews.   BOB ATCHISON NOTE: Gilliard's comment indicates an assumption that the Jews bore a unique responsiblity in some way for either the Revolution or the murder of the Imperial family. This was not true and betrays Mr. Gilliard's anti-semitism, which was wide-spread at the time in Europe and America. The Tsar was neither condemned nor even judged - and by whom could he have been? - he was assassinated. And what of the Tsarina, the children, Dr. Botkin, and the three servants who died with them? But what does it matter to the murderers? They are sure of impunity; the bullet killed, the flame destroyed, and the earth covered what the fire could not devour. Oh, they are very easy in their minds; no one will talk, for they are united by infamy. And it seems to be with reason that commissary Volkov can exclaim, "The world will never know what we have done with them!" These men were mistaken. After months of groping, the enquiry commission undertook methodical investigation in the forest. Every inch of ground was searched, scrutinised, examined, and soon the mineshaft, the soil of the clearing, and the grass of the vicinity revealed their secret. Hundreds of articles and fragments, for the most part trodden into the ground, were discovered, identified, and classified by the court of enquiry. Amongst other things, they found in this way: The buckle of the Tsar's belt, a fragment of his cap, the little portable frame containing the portrait of the Tsarina the photograph had disappeared - which the Tsar always carried about him, etc. The Tsarina's favorite ear-rings (one broken), pieces of her dress, the glass of her spectacles, recognizable by its special shape, etc. The buckle of the Tsarevich's belt, some buttons, and pieces of his cloak, etc. A number of small articles belonging to the Grand-Duchesses: fragments of necklaces, shoes, buttons, hooks, press-buttons, etc. Six metal corset busks. "Six" - a number which speaks for itself when the number of the female victims is remembered: the Tsarina, the four Grand-duchesses, and A. Demidova, the Tsarina's maid. Dr. Botkin's false teeth, fragments of his eyeglasses, buttons from his clothes, etc. Finally charred bones and fragments of bones, partly destroyed by acid and occasionally bearing the mark of a sharp instrument or saw; revolver bullets - doubtless those which had remained embedded in the bodies - and a fairly large quantity of melted lead. A pathetic list of relics, leaving, alas! no hope, and showing up the truth in all its brutality and horror. Commissary Volkov was mistaken: the world now knows what they did with them. Meanwhile the murderers were growing uneasy. The agents they had left at Ekaterinburg to set the enquiry on false trails kept them in touch with its progress. This they followed step by step. And when they understood finally that the truth was about to be revealed, that the whole world would soon know what had happened, they became afraid, and tried to throw on to others the responsibility for their crime. It was then that they accused the socialist-revolutionaries of being the authors of the crime and of having tried this means of compromising the Bolshevik party. In September, 1919, twenty-eight persons were arrested by them at Perm, falsely accused of having participated in the murder of the Imperial family, and tried. Five of them were condemned to death and executed. This odious farce forms one more illustration of the cynicism of these men who did not hesitate to send innocent people to their death rather than incur the responsibility for one of the greatest crimes of history. It remains to mention the tragedy of Alapaevsk, which is closely connected with that of Ekaterinburg, and caused the death of several other members of the Imperial family. The Grand-Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, sister of the Tsarina, the Grand-Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, cousin of the Tsar, Princes Ivan, Konstantin, and Igor, sons of the Grand Duke Konstantin, and Prince Paley, son of the Grand-Duke Paul, had been arrested in the spring of 1918 and taken to the little town of Alapaevsk, situated 150 versts north of Ekaterinburg. A nun, Barbara Yakovlev, the Grand-Duchess's companion, and S. Remes, secretary of the Grand-Duke Sergei, shared their captivity. Their prison was the school-house. In the night Of July 17th-18th, twenty-four hours after the Ekaterinburg crime, they were fetched and, under pretext of being removed to another town, were driven about twelve versts from Alapaevsk. There, in a forest, they were put to death. Their bodies were thrown into the shaft of an abandoned mine, where they were found, in October, 1918, covered with the earth thrown up by the explosion of hand-grenades by which the sufferings of the victims had been terminated. The autopsy revealed traces of death by shooting only of he body of the Grand-Duke Sergei, and the enquiry has failed to establish exactly how his companions were killed. It is probable that they were beaten down with rifle butts. This crime of unexampled brutality was the work of Commissary Safarov, member of the Ekaterinburg Presidium, who, however, was acting entirely on the orders of Moscow. Some days after the capture of Ekaterinburg, when order was being restored in the town and the dead buried, two bodies were found not far from the prison. On one of them was found a receipt for 80,000 roubles made out to Citizen Dolgorouky, and, according to the descriptions of witnesses, it seems certain that this was the body of Prince Dolgorouky. There is every reason to believe that the other was the body of General Tatichtchev. Both died, as they had expected, for their Tsar. General Tatichtchev said to me one day at Tobolsk: "I know I shan't come out alive. I only ask one thing, not to be separated from the Tsar and to be allowed to die with him." Even this supreme consolation was denied him. Countess Hendrikova and Mlle. Schneider were removed from Ekaterinburg a few days after the murder of the Imperial family and taken to Perm. There they were shot in the night of September 3rd-4th, 1918. Their bodies were found and identified in May, 1919. As for Nagorny, Aleksey Nicolaievich's sailor, and the footman, Ivan Sedniev, they were put to death in the neighborhood of Ekaterinburg in the beginning of June, 1918. Their bodies were found two months later at the place of execution. All, from General to seaman, did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives and go bravely to meet death. This seaman, however, a humble peasant from the Ukraine, had only to say one word to be saved. He had only to deny his Tsar. This word remained unspoken... For a long time, with simple and sincere faith, they had devoted their lives to those they loved, who had been able to inspire those who surrounded them with so much affection, courage, and self-sacrifice.     Next Chapter: Epilogue Please send your comments on this page to Bob Atchison

Town named after Sverlosk

Yurovsky wrote his account in 1920. By that time, the Bolsheviks had changed the name of Ekaterinburg to Sverdlovsk, in honor of the man who masterminded the execution - Yakov Sverdlov - a member of the Bolshevik Central Committee. (In 1962, the American U-2 pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was shot down over Sverdlovsk.)

Fornicate corpses

"Voikov, the Jew, boasted to his 'lady' friends in Ekaterinburg after the murder that two of the jews drank liquor and returned to fornicate with the dead corpses.A Russian soldiers, Philip Proskouriakoff, signed a sworn statement to Dr Wilton who keep the record of the tribunal.

Text: IT was June 17, 1918, in the Siberian mining town of Yekaterinburg, where the recently abdicated Czar of Russia, Nicholas Romanov, was being held captive with his family and tiny retinue. Shortly after midnight, members of the imperial party were wakened by Yakov Yurovsky, the Bolshevik officer in charge of the Romanovs' captivity. They were ordered to go to the basement of the modest house in which they had been interned for some 11 weeks, and were ushered into a very small, bare room. Nicholas came first, carrying his ailing hemophiliac son, 13-year-old Alexei; next came his wife, the former Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, and their daughters, the Grand Duchesses -- 22-year-old Olga, 21-year-old Tatiana, 19-year-old Maria, 17-year-old Anastasia. There followed the four retainers who had shared the family's captivity: a cook, a valet, a maid and the Romanovs' physician. Yurovsky, a photographer by vocation, asked the 11 prisoners to stand in two rows against the wall of the room, as if for a family portrait. Satisfied with his arrangement, he then called in the killer squad -- six Latvians, five Russians -- who immediately crowded into the narrow door that faced the captives. As Yurovsky finished reading a brief statement that ended with the words "the Ural Executive Committee has decided to execute you," the shooting began. The brutality and sadism of the carnage that followed is unequaled in the recent annals of royal executions. The entire process was also chillingly prophetic of the chaos and barbaric incompetence of the state that would be erected upon the ruins of the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty. Instead of standing shoulder to shoulder, like a proper shooting squad, the executioners were backed up into the doorway in rows of three or four, firing over each other's shoulders in such a huddle that many of them suffered gunpowder wounds and were partly deafened.

Skulls crushed

The Czar was killed on the spot, as were the Empress and Grand Duchess Olga, neither of whom could finish making the sign of the cross. Other members of the group were less fortunate. Because the Czarevitch and his three remaining sisters wore corsets thickly sewn with some 17 pounds of jewels, for long moments bullets fired at their chests continued to ricochet around the tiny room like hail, failing to kill them. First mystified, then enraged, the executioners, in a mayhem of billowing gun smoke, blood and shouts of terror, finished off their victims with bayonets and rifle butts -- so viciously that some of the imperial party's skulls, in the words of a forensic expert, were "crushed as though a truck drove over them." The Bolsheviks' manner of covering up the Romanovs' execution, which was intended to remain a state secret, was equally savage and inept. Some drunken members of the local Yekaterinburg Soviet immediately broadcast the location of the initial burial site. It took Yurovsky two more days, amid a havoc of trucks breaking down or never showing up, to rebury the mangled corpses in another area of the Siberian forest, some 12 miles from Yekaterinburg. The city would soon be rebaptized Sverdlovsk, after Yakov Sverdlov, Lenin's Minister of the Interior, who played a crucial role in the decision to eliminate the Romanovs.

The site of the common grave remained unknown to the public for seven decades. The three books under review, each in its own manner, broaden our knowledge of the historical events that led to these unspeakable acts; all three texts draw upon Soviet and Russian Government archives that were held in rigorous secrecy until the advent of glasnost some seven years ago. Robert K. Massie's book may well incite the greatest interest, if only because of the phenomenal success of his 1967 biography, "Nicholas and Alexandra." His new book is divided into three major parts. The first segment -- by far the most fascinating and original -- focuses on the complex scientific process used in identifying the Romanovs' remains. This inquiry began only in 1991, soon after the location of the grave site became publicly known. That year, skeletons of nine members of the imperial party -- the Czarevitch's corpse and that of one Grand Duchess were missing from the common grave -- were exhumed at the order of Sverdlovsk authorities and laid upon a metal table in that city's morgue, where they remain to this day. Mr. Massie has written an admirable scientific chronicle of the manner in which forensic medicine and DNA analysis have been used to identify the Romanovs' bones, and to determine the most disputed point in Romanov studies -- precisely which of the Grand Duchesses, Maria or Anastasia, is missing from the exhumed remains. This section of Mr. Massie's book is such a complex historical thriller that its substance is best communicated by sketching a chronology of its principal stages.

1) 1919: Nicholas Sokolov, a legal investigator for the White Government in Siberia, whose troops recaptured Yekaterinburg eight days after the murder of the imperial family, exhumed from the first burial site a modest boxful of charred remains, which he erroneously assumed were the Romanovs' only bodily traces. His report, published throughout Europe in 1924, dispelled the myth, carefully propagated by Lenin's Government, that only the Emperor had been shot in 1918, and that his family had fled to safety.

2) 1978: Aleksandr Avdonin, a Sverdlovsk geologist long fascinated by the Romanov legend, enlists the help of Geli Ryabov, a very prominent, secretly anti-Bolshevik Moscow writer and film maker, to search for the Romanovs' burial site. They eventually locate the common grave and pledge not to tell anyone of their findings. But a decade later Mr. Ryabov reneges on his vow and, never mentioning Mr. Avdonin's pioneering role in the discovery, breaks his story to the Russian press and to the world.

3) 1991: As the last Communists are being expelled from the Sverdlovsk city council and the city is renamed Yekaterinburg, local authorities, with the approval of the new President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, a Sverdlovsk native, start exhuming and studying the imperial bones. They are soon joined and disputed by Moscow's leading forensic anthropologist. A bitter tug-of-war begins between Yekaterinburg and Moscow concerning which of the two cities "owns" the Romanov remains. The re-empowered Russian Orthodox Church joins the fray with plans to build a church on the site of the Romanovs' murder.

4) February 1992: During an official visit to Yekaterinburg, the American Secretary of State, James A. Baker 3d, is besought by local authorities to send some American forensic experts to study the imperial bones. A team is swiftly assembled from the ranks of the F. B. I. and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology; but two days before its scheduled departure it cancels the trip, upon learning that Yekaterinburg has invited yet another American team, led by Dr. William Maples of the University of Florida, to do the research.

5) July 1992: Because DNA testing is not available in Russia ("We were working on molecular genetic testing at one time," one Russian scientist wryly tells Mr. Massie, "then Mr. Stalin shot his entire team"), Dr. Pavel Ivanov of Moscow launches his own investigation. Dr. Ivanov brings segments of the Romanovs' bones to the foremost DNA expert of Great Britain's Home Office, Dr. Peter Gill. Another colossal rivalry begins between the Gill-Ivanov faction of DNA experts, which contends that the missing Grand Duchess is Maria, and Dr. Maples's forensic team, which asserts that Anastasia is the missing one. As of now, Dr. Maples has not yet released his final report, and the findings of the Ivanov-Gill team have not been contested.

AS this outline suggests, a central subtext of Mr. Massie's book is the egotistical, often ruthless rivalry between international experts peddling their findings about the Romanovs' pitiable bones, and the far more lamentable infighting between Russian sleuths, who refuse even to share their findings with their compatriots, and continue to handle the imperial remains with the same chaotic ineptness with which the Bolsheviks killed and buried their victims in 1918. The most damning passage of Mr. Massie's book in this regard concerns the "curious but not uncommon mixture of Communist and capitalistic perspectives" with which some Yekaterinburg citizens strive to retain the Romanovs' skeletons, with the intent of turning them into a commercial bonanza. "We think these remains will be very valuable," he quotes a local police official as saying. "At least, people think they will have some value for tourists." My only reservation about this valuable section of Mr. Massie's book concerns its claustrophobic style. His narrative is too densely packed with scientific data and with cameo appearances by experts of diverse nationalities, too burdened by tales of infighting between competing experts and between cliques of bickering Russians. The text needs more lucidity and airiness; too often it bears the oppressive aura of the Yekaterinburg morgue, which is its emotive center. However, it is a much more entrancing sample of historical sleuthing than the second and third segments of his book, which are equally cluttered and convoluted, but far less interesting. The second part concerns the various impostors who have claimed to be members of the Russian imperial family. It focuses, inevitably, on Anna Anderson, the eccentric, very deranged woman who for 40 years claimed to be Grand Duchess Anastasia, the daughter of Czar Nicholas II who, some have thought, escaped the Bolsheviks' carnage. Mr. Massie offers an impressive summary of the recent DNA research that has proved that Anna Anderson was a fraud, and has put the Anastasia legend to rest. Never having believed in the possibility of Anastasia's survival, I was as indifferent to this section of Mr. Massie's book as I was to its third segment, a report on those Romanov emigres -- close relatives of the Czar's -- who survived the Bolsheviks' persecution. Whether they hole up in their villas in Madrid or the Riviera or marry Palm Beach heiresses, most of these White Russian patricians strike one as a doltish, backward lot, and seem even more reactionary than their pre-Revolutionary forefathers, who at least knew how to party well. However, Mr. Massie's recounting of the Romanov emigres' absurd squabbling about which of them is the "true pretender" to the Russian throne, their archaic distrust of most contemporary forensic methods, and their petty disputes over where the Romanov bones should be buried, does reinforce the haunting theme that unifies his entire book: in any stable, moral society, the proper identification and disposal of martyred innocents' remains should be occasion for unification and atonement; but up to now, the imperial family's bones have only exacerbated the inner strife plaguing both the Russian emigre community and that wobbly nation-state currently called the Russian Federation. This macabre historical irony, subtly intimated by the author, gives his often masterly book that tone of dignity and horror that informed the events of July 17, 1918.

The burial of the imperial family in St. Petersburg's Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul has just been rescheduled for Feb. 25, 1996, after having been canceled three times. Proceeding from Mr. Massie's text to Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir N. Khrustalev's "Fall of the Romanovs" is like walking from a dangerously overstocked laboratory into a spacious, airy museum. This remarkable work is part of the "Annals of Communism" series being issued by Yale University Press, and draws on previously inaccessible documents from archives of the former Soviet state, which contained extensive files concerning the fate of the Romanovs during and after the Revolution. Mr. Khrustalev, a Moscow-based scholar, has edited and annotated the documents; Mr. Steinberg, a professor of history at Yale, has written the connecting text, which is peerless in its lucidity and depth of vision, and is written in a sparse, elegant prose all too rare in academic publications. One of Mr. Khrustalev and Mr. Steinberg's most important contributions is to clarify the historical context in which the decision to execute the imperial family was made. From the spring of 1918 on, the fledgling Bolshevik Government was being menaced both within and without: a White Russian army was sweeping through Siberia and threatening to capture Yekaterinburg; troops from several anti-Bolshevik European nations had landed in Murmansk; the ultraradical faction of Social Revolutionaries, who had failed to pass a vote of no confidence in Lenin, were plotting armed rebellion. Throughout the previous months, Lenin had looked on Nicholas and his German-born wife as potential pawns to be used in his intricate dealings with foreign powers; but, as the authors make clear, the mounting peril led him to look on them as irrelevant. And he increasingly tended to relinquish the imperial family's fate to the authorities of Yekaterinburg, headquarters of the Ural Soviet, a city with a long history of radical violence and a hotbed of Bolshevik extremism, which had attempted for months to seize the abdicated Emperor from the shelter of the central Moscow Government in order to execute him. By then, King George V of England, the Czar's "devoted cousin Georgie," had also helped to seal the royal family's doom. Fearing the opprobrium of his citizens, whose hatred of Empress Alexandra was fueled by their fierce anti-German sentiments, King George had reneged on his previous invitation offering the Romanovs exile in Britain.

THE burning question that still remains unanswered and, in the authors' opinion, may never be resolved, is the degree to which Lenin, encouraged by his ferocious right-hand man Yakov Sverdlov, was personally involved in the decision to eliminate the royal family; or whether -- as the Soviet state had traditionally held -- the decision was mostly made by a band of overzealous provincials in Yekaterinburg. The authors, who, surprisingly, are more cautious than many contemporary historians about blaming Lenin directly, offer and annotate those long-repressed documents most relevant to this issue: letters and telegrams exchanged between Moscow and Yekaterinburg in July 1918 concerning the fate of the "baggage," as the Bolsheviks referred to the doomed Romanovs; oral testimonies by members of the execution squad; the unexpurgated text of a report on the Romanovs' execution, written in 1920 by the head of the squad, Yakov Yurovsky, but sealed into Soviet state archives until the late 1980's. Such documents are among the many treasures of this extraordinary book. It is essential reading to anyone interested in Western history -- or, more specifically, in that "first bloody signpost of 20th-century totalitarianism," which, in the authors' eyes, might be symbolized by the murder of the Romanovs. It has been common wisdom that most books as physically dazzling, as gorgeously illustrated, as Peter Kurth's "Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra" are accompanied by vapid non-texts. Mr. Kurth's narrative is a striking exception to the rule. The author's acquaintanceship with Romanov history was evident in his previous book "Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson." His new narrative, although far less original than Mr. Massie's or Mr. Steinberg's, is amply documented and compellingly written, and offers as fine a portrait of Nicholas and Alexandra's complex characters as any book since Mr. Massie's biography of nearly three decades ago. Like Mr. Steinberg and most other contemporary historians, Mr. Kurth revises -- excessively, in my view -- the traditional stereotypes that saw Nicholas II as weak and witless, and the Empress as treacherous and dominating. Without whitewashing the monarchs' violent anti-Semitism, their appalling political blunders and their obdurate faith in an archaically autocratic system, he stresses their shyness, reclusiveness and frequent acts of benevolence (of which the massacre of Bloody Sunday," 1905, was not one). The author also lingers on the Empress's deepening neurosis, which was obviously aggravated by the Czarevitch's illness and by the family's resolve to keep his ailment secret ("Better one Rasputin than 10 fits of hysterics a day," the Czar once commented); the monarchs' virtuous isolation from the dissolutely hedonistic Russian nobility; their fatalistic spirituality, and that mystical, ultraromantic faith in the narod, the common Russian people, who, so Nicholas believed until his last moments, would eventually "come to their senses" and reinstate him as their ruler. Through letters exchanged by Nicky and Alix, as they were called by their relatives, Mr. Kurth also emphasizes the depth of the monarchs' abiding infatuation for each other (seldom, indeed, has such a passionate love match been known in the annals of royalty). And he underscores the intense domesticity, shared by both monarchs, into which they retreated all too often from problems of state. Peter Christopher's color photographs of the traditional Romanov sites -- Tsarskoye Selo, the Alexander Palace, the Winter Palace -- are as beautiful as any pictures I've seen of Russia. But the modest snapshots, patiently exhumed from archives, taken by members of the imperial family and of their entourage, are even more affecting: the Empress and the tragically innocent Grand Duchess Olga in their nurse's uniforms, assisting at surgery in a hospital during World War I; the emaciated, angelic-faced Czarevitch sitting up in his bed in that fated house in Yekaterinburg, which the Bolsheviks, with their great gift for euphemism, called "The House of Special Purpose." One cannot study such images without sensing a primal irony of the Romanov family's destiny -- the suffocating hothouse of their misguided, occasionally good intentions.

Shameful page? of history closed

After 80 years, Russia buries the Romanovs

By Jim Maceda

NBC NEWS PETERSBURG, Russia, July 17

Playing the role of repentant statesman, President Boris Yeltsin surrounded by dozens of foreign dignitaries and relatives of Russia¡¯s last czar buried the remains of Nicholas II and his family in an 18th century cathedral on Friday. Forty-seven surviving members of the Romanov family and diplomats from 50 countries witnessed the event, which Yeltsin called ¡°one of the most shameful pages in our history.¡±

SOLEMN AND MELANCHOLY choral music drifted through the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. A local Russian Orthodox priest blessed the remains, carried in small wooden coffins, as they were moved into an adjacent chapel. All Russian czars and members of the Romanov dynasty are buried in the cathedral, including Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible. It was something that you never can prepare for. But there¡¯s such relief that it¡¯s over and it¡¯s done,¡± Rostislav Romanov, the Chicago-born grand-nephew of Nicholas II told NBC News. I say we came here to finish some unfinished family business, and now it¡¯s finished.¡±Romanov¡¯s grandmother, Evguenia, was Nicholas II¡¯s sister. She and her husband fled Russia in 1918. Romanov¡¯s father and mother moved to the United States, and led a modest suburban life. The grand-nephew, technically a prince, although he refuses to be addressed as one, is now an investment banker working in England. Also in attendance, although in an unofficial capacity, was Prince Michael of Kent, a member of Britain¡¯s royal family, which is related to the Romanovs.

CONTROVERSIAL BURIAL; Many leading figures chose to skip the service due to controversies it generated. Yeltsin was planning to stay away as well, but changed his mind and on Thursday said he would participate. Friday, he delivered a powerful message of regret. We must tell the truth ? the (czar¡¯s) massacre has become one of the most shameful pages of our history,¡± Yeltsin said in opening the ceremony in the St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. ¡°By burying the innocent victims we want to expiate the sins of our ancestors.¡±The Russian Orthodox Church chose not to play a large role in the funeral. The patriarch, Alexei II, stayed away, citing concerns over the authenticity of the remains. The service was simple ? not the lavish affair that many expected in the months leading up to the burial. More than 600 guests crowded into the church. At end of ceremony, one by one the caskets were carried by four soldiers from the cathedral to an adjacent room specially prepared for the remains. Each coffin was lowered into a crypt, and stacked in pyramidal order. The four royal retainers who died alongside the family were lowered first, followed by three Romanov children, Empress Alexandra, and then Nicholas. As the czar was laid to rest, a series of cannon volleys shot off nearby.

BLOODY DEATH; Nicholas was the last of the Romanov emperors who ruled Russia for 300 years. After abdicating in 1917 in the throes of the Russian Revolution, he was murdered on July 17, 1918, along with Alexandra, their five children and four servants. Bolshevik zealots who carried out the killings then tried to erase all traces of the corpses. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, nine of the 11 bodies were recovered from a desolate forest outside the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg and subjected to years of painstaking tests to confirm their identity. At Friday¡¯s ceremony, Yeltsin, his head bowed, played the role of repentant statesman, carrying the burden of 80 years of shame. Ironically, it was Yeltsin, as Communist Party boss in Yekaterinburg, who presided over the destruction of Ipatiev house, where the Romanov family was held in exile and later executed. Investment banker Rostislav Romanov came to Russia for the first time for the burial. His wife and three young children joined him at the service. I was very proud today. I was very proud of Russia, and I was very proud of my family,¡± Romanov said with tears in his eyes. His father, the sixth son of Nicholas¡¯ sister, worked as a clothing salesman in Chicago, and his mother as a seamstress. Nikolai Romanov throws some symbolic earth on the coffins containing the remains of the last Russian Czar Nicholas II and his family, while other Romanov family members look on at St. Peter and Paul cathedral in St. Petersburg on Friday.

SILENT VIGIL, NBC¡¯s Jim Maceda reports from St. Petersburg on the burial of the Romanovs, and what that meant to many of the Czar¡¯s distant, modern-day descendants. Thousands of Russians stood in silence along St. Petersburg¡¯s streets and riverbanks Thursday as the czar¡¯s cortege passed by. A long line of dark green hearses glided past the imperial capital¡¯s canals and palaces, saluted by rounds of cannon fire and honor guards. We¡¯re watching history, the history of Russia,¡± said Alexandra Butina, 16, who brought her 9-year-old brother Semyon to watch the procession through the gates of the city¡¯s central fortress. The burial has reopened long-suppressed chapters of Russian history, stirring fresh debate about the Bolshevik Revolution, the Romanov dynasty, and the nature of national guilt and repentance. Since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia has not held any major, formal ceremonies dealing with the abuses committed during communist times. Friday¡¯s service brings the issue to the fore.

RUSSIAN MEDIA SHOWS INTEREST; It has been difficult to turn on a television in Russia this week without seeing programs about the royal family, with archival footage of Nicholas, his wife, Alexandra, and their children. Russians who grew up in the Communist era knowing little about the Romanovs are being inundated with their history. Lyuba Novikova, a 37-year-old secretary, said she was surprised by the depth of emotion she felt when she saw the hearses appear over the arch of the Troitsky Bridge. I cried,¡± she said. ¡°I¡¯m a simple person. I can¡¯t say why, but I cried.¡±But then she gave it another thought and added: ¡°It¡¯s like a shadow has been over us, and now we hope things will be better for Russia.¡±

Trostsky Family - Col House

Leon Trotsky (whose real name was Lev Davidovich Bronstein, 1879-1940, the son of wealthy Jewish parents), who was exiled from Russia because of his part in the aborted revolution in 1905, was a reporter for Novy Mir, a communist paper in New York, from 1916-17. He had an expensive apartment and traveled around town in a chauffeur-driven limousine. He sometimes stayed at the Krupp mansion, and had been seen going in and out of Schiff’s New York mansion. Trotsky was given $20 million in Jacob Schiff gold to help finance the revolution, which was deposited in a Warburg bank, then transferred to the Nya Banken in Stockholm, Sweden. According to the Knickerbocker Column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: “Today it is estimated by Jacob’s grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.” 

Trotsky left New York aboard the S. S. Kristianiafjord (S. S. Christiania), which had been chartered by Schiff and Warburg, on March 27, 1917, with communist revolutionaries. At Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 3rd, the first port they docked at, the Canadians, under orders from the British Admiralty, seized Trotsky, and his men, taking them to the prison at Amherst; and impounded his gold. 

Official records, later declassified by the Canadian government, indicate that they knew Trotsky and his small army were “socialists leaving for the purposes of starting revolution against present Russian government...” The Canadians were concerned that if Lenin would take over Russia, he would sign a Peace Treaty and stop the fighting between Russia and Germany, so that the Germany Army could be diverted to possibly mount an offensive against the United States and Canada. The British government (through intelligence officer Sir William Wiseman, who later became a partner with Kuhn, Loeb and Co.) and American government (through Col. House) urged them to let Trotsky go. Wilson said that if they didn’t comply, the U.S. wouldn’t enter the War. Trotsky was released, given an American passport, a British transport visa, and a Russian entry permit. It is obvious that Wilson knew what was going on, because accompanying Trotsky, was Charles Crane of the Westinghouse Company, who was the Chairman of the Democratic Finance Committee. The U.S. entered the war on April 6th. Trotsky arrived in Petrograd on May 17. 

Secrets From the Forest - Missing bodies

In 1989 startling news came from the Soviet Union. It was a time of great change.  President Mikhail Gorbachev promoted a greater openness in Soviet society and peaceful relations with the West. On April 12, headlines announced that the bones of the Romanov royal family had been found in a mass grave in the Koptyaki Forest. In fact, they had been discovered by amateur historians led by Alexander Avdonin and Geli Ryabov in 1979. Fearing how the Soviet government might react, the finders hid the information until things changed.

In 1991, Soviet authorities opened the shallow grave. They discovered the tangled skeletons of nine people along with sections of rope and broken sulfuric acid pots. A team of Soviet scientists immediately began to try to identify the remains. Based on studies of the skeletons, they were able to determine the gender and age and found them consistent with those of the royal family, the doctor and the servants. All of the skeletons showed evidence of massive traumatic injuries and gun shot wounds. The dental work of some was the type used near the turn of the century and of the highest quality, affordable only by the richest of people. Scientists made careful skull measurements and compared them to life photos of Romanov family members. They superimposed pictures of the skulls on similar photos and found a match.  They noted evidence of old fractures or injuries to the bones and compared them to known medical conditions of family members. The scientists concluded that occupants of the lonely grave in the forest were the tsar and the others from the Ipatiev massacre. Only one thing did not match.  The scientists could reconstruct only nine skeletons. There should have been 11. They concluded that Alexei and one of the grand duchesses, probably Marie, were missing.

To help confirm the findings, the Soviets asked several American forensic scientists, including Dr. William Maples of the University of Florida, to conduct an independent study.  His team reached similar conclusions to the Soviets, but believed that the missing bodies were those of Alexei and Anastasia, not Marie.

Meanwhile, other Soviet citizens, including writer Edvard Radinsky, had searched Soviet archives to find more clues about the fate of the tsar's family. Through careful research and detective work, they added new details to the story of the tragedy of Ipatiev house. For example, killing the royal family in the cellar had been no easy matter. The young girls, and perhaps even Alexei, had sewn precious jewels—diamonds, rubies and the like—into their clothes to hide them from the Bolsheviks. Like bullet-proof vests, this jewel-encrusted clothing had protected them from the bullets. The executioners had to use bayonets to finally kill them.  Also, in disposing of the bodies, several accounts suggested that two of them had been burned and buried separately from the others.

Still questions remained. In 1992, the Soviets decided to conduct DNA testing on the remains. This process uses comparisons between sequences of genetic material to match samples of human tissue with living people or deceased relatives. DNA can be found in bone, blood, hair, and even saliva. Using blood samples donated by Prince Philip of England, the grandnephew of Tsarina Alexandra, Dr. Gill of the British Home Office Forensic Science Service conducted the tests.  The testing confirmed that five bodies, a father, a mother, and three daughters were all part of the same family. It also proved that the mother was Alexandra. The results were confirmed by two other laboratories.  Scientists ran another test comparing Tsar Nicholas's DNA with that of his dead brother Grand Duke George, whose body had been exhumed for a tissue sample. The test showed they were from the same family.

These tests left little scientific doubt about the identity of the remains found in the mass grave. But what about the missing skeletons?  Believers of Anna Anderson found support for their theories when Dr. Maples claimed that Anastasia's was one of the missing bodies. Two of Anderson's supporters, the granddaughter of the doctor who died with the Romanovs and her husband, Marina and Richard Schweitzer, asked Dr. Gill to make tests to compare Anna's DNA and that of the Romanov bones. Though Anderson had died and been cremated in 1984, a lab sample of her tissue was located. A living relative of the missing Polish woman Schanzkowska, who the Romanovs claimed was Anderson, also provided a blood sample for testing. Now Dr. Gill could test Anderson's DNA against both.

The test results shocked those who believed in Anderson's story. They showed that she was not related to the Romanovs, but was related to Schanskowska. Other labs confirmed the results showing that Anna Anderson had, by false belief or fraud, been an imposter all along.  Some supporters rejected the tests and continue to believe in her claims.

While most of the mysteries about death of the Romanov's now seem resolved through the use of DNA testing, a few remain.  What really happened to the bodies of the missing Romanov children?  Some believe they were burned and buried somewhere in the Koptyaki Forest and someday may be found.  Others suggest that they demonstrate that one or more of the children may have survived. 

If anyone does surface claiming to be the last of the Romanov children, DNA testing should quickly settle the matter.

In 1935 journalist Richard Halliburton interviewed another of the assassins, Peter Ermakov, who said, "Yurovsky had a Nagant repeater.  Vaganov and I had Mausers".  A Nagant is a Russian made revolver of questionable reliability similar to the Smith and Wesson sidearm used by British troops of the era but with two differences: The cylinder springs forward to seal the chamber just before the bullet is fired and it holds seven rounds instead of six.

The condition of No. 5's remains came as a shock. The scientists did not have a complete skeleton to work off of, she had been too badly abused by her murderers. In Anastasia Dead or Alive, Dr. Maples showed us the skull that belonged to No. 5.. or what little was left of it. His book Dead Men Do Tell Tales shows a front view of the few remaining pieces: the eye orbits, and the beginning of the bridge of the nose. Half of the middle face was missing, a pattern of damage that was seen in Olga's remains as well. The sorry condition of this skull reminded us of one point in Yurovsky's note: when one of the Grand Duchesses was being laid on a sheet she supposedly sat up and cried out. The whole band of soldiers was said to turn on her with their bayonets. The damage patterns fit this description, and it is possible that Shvibz could have survived the round of bullets, but sadly it seems that the youngest of the four girls was struck down that nigh

February 1, 1934:

On the 16th in the morning I dispatched the little cook, the boy Sednev, under the pretext that there would be a meeting with his uncle who had come to Sverdlovsk. It caused anxiety among the prisoners. Botkin, the usual intermediary, and then one of the daughters asked about Sednev - where, why and for how long he had been taken away - because Alexei missed him. Having received an explanation, they went away apparently calmed down. I prepared 12 revolvers and designated who would shoot whom. Comrade Filipp [Goloshchyokin] told me that a truck would arrive at midnight; the people coming would say a password; we would let them pass and hand over the corpses to them to carry away and bury. At about 11 o'clock at night on July 16 I assembled the men again, handed out the revolvers and announced that soon we had to begin liquidating the prisoners. I told Pavel Medvedev he had to check the guard outside and inside thoroughly. He and the guard commander had to keep constant watch over the area around the house and in the house where the external guard was stationed and to maintain communications with me. I also told him that at the last moment, when everything was ready for the execution, he had tell the guards and the others in the detachment not to worry about any shots they might hear from the house, and not to leave the premises. If there were any unusual amount of unrest, he was to notify me through the established line of communication.

The truck did not arrive until half past one. The extra wait caused some anxiety - waiting in general, and the short night especially. Only when the truck had arrived (or after telephone calls that it was on the way) did I go to wake the prisoners. Botkin slept in the room nearest to the entrance. He came out and asked me what the matter was. I told him to wake everybody, because there was unrest in the town and it was dangerous for them to remain on the top floor. I said I would move them to another place. Gathering everybody consumed a lot of time, about 40 minutes. When the family had dressed, I led them to the room in the basement that had been designated earlier. It must be said here that when Comrade Nikulin and I thought up our plan, we did not consider beforehand that, one, the windows would let out noise; two, the victims would be standing next to a brick wall; and finally, three (It was impossible to foresee this), the firing would occur in an uncoordinated way. That should not have happened. Each man had one person to shoot and so everything should have been all right. The causes of the disorganized firing became clear later. Although I told [the victims] through Botkin that they did not have to take anything with them they collected various small things - pillows, bags and so on and, it seems to me, a small dog.

Having gone down to the room (At the entrance to the room, on the right there was a very wide window), I ordered them to stand along the wall. Obviously, at that moment they did not imagine what awaited them. Alexandra Feodrovna said "There are not even chairs here." Nicholas was carrying Alexei. He stood in the room with him in his arms. Then I ordered a couple of chairs. On one of them, to the right of the entrance, almost in the corner, Alexandra Feodrovna sat down. The daughters and Demidova stood next to her, to the left of the entrance. Beside them Alexei was seated in the armchair. Behind him Dr. Botkin, the cook and the others stood. Nicholas stood opposite Alexei. At the same time I ordered the men to go down and to be ready in their places when the command was given. Nicholas had put Alexei on the chair and stood in such a way, that he shielded him. Alexei sat in the left corner from the entrance, and so far as I can remember, I said to Nicholas approximately this: His royal and close relatives inside the country and abroad were trying to save him, but the Soviet of Workers' Deputies resolved to shoot them. He asked "What?" and turned toward Alexei. At that moment I shot him and killed him outright. He did not get time to face us to get an answer. At that moment disorganized, not orderly firing began. The room was small, but everybody could come in and carry out the shooting according to the set order. But many shot through the doorway. Bullets began to ricochet because the wall was brick. Moreover, the firing intensified when the victims shouts arose. I managed to stop the firing but with great difficulty.

A bullet, fired by somebody in the back, hummed near my head and grazed either the palm or finger (I do not remember) of somebody. When the firing stopped, it turned out that the daughters, Alexandra Feodrovna and, it seems, Demidova and Alexei too, were alive. I think they had fallen from fear or maybe intentionally, and so they were alive. Then we proceeded to finish the shooting. (Previously I had suggested shooting at the heart to avoid a lot of blood). Alexei remained sitting petrified. I killed him. They shot the daughters but did not kill them. Then Yermakov resorted to a bayonet, but that did not work either. Finally they killed them by shooting them in the head. Only in the forest did I finally discover the reason why it had been so hard to kill the daughters and Alexandra Feodrovna.

After the shooting it was necessary to carry away the corpses, but it was a comparatively long way. How could we do it? Somebody came up with an idea: stretchers. (We did not think about it earlier.) We took shafts from the sledges and, it seems, put sheets on them. Having confirmed they were dead, we began to carry them out. It was discovered that traces of blood would be everywhere. I said to get some smooth woolen military cloth immediately and put some of it onto the stretchers and then line the truck with it. I directed Mikhail Medvedev to take the corpses. He was a Cheka man then and currently works in the GPU. He and Pyotr Zakharovich Yermakov had to take the bodies and take them away. When they had removed the first corpse somebody said (I do not remember exactly who it was) that someone had taken some valuables. Then I understood that evidently there had been valuables in the things that they had brought with them. I stopped the removal immediately, assembled the men and demanded the valuables be returned. After some denial, two men returned the valuables they had taken.

After I threatened the looters with shooting, I removed those two and ordered Comrade Nikulin (as far as I remember) to escort the bodies, having warned him about valuables. I first collected everything - the things they had taken and other things as well - and I sent all of it to the commandant's office.

Comrade Filipp [Goloshchyokin], apparently sparing me (My health was not very good), told me not to go to the "funeral" but I worried very much about disposing of the corpses properly. So I decided to go personally, and it turned out I did the right thing. Otherwise, all the corpses would wind up in the hands of the White Guards. It is easy to imagine how they would have exploited the situation.

After instructions were given to wash and clean everything, at about three o'clock or even a little later, we left. I took several men from the internal guards. I did not know where the corpses were supposed to be buried, as I have said. Filipp Goloshchyokin had assigned that to Comrade Yermakov (By the way it seems it was Pavel Vedvedev who told me that night that he had seen Comrade Filipp, when he was running to the team. Comrade Filipp was walking back and forth all the time near the house, apparently because he was anxious about how everything would turn out). Yermakov drove us somewhere at the Verkh-Isetsky Works. I was never at that place and did not know it. At about two-three versts (or maybe more) from the Verkh-Isetsky Works, a whole escort of people on horseback or in carriages met us. I asked Yermakov who these people were, why they were there. He answered that he had assembled those people. I still do not know why there were so many. I heard only shouts "We thought they would come here alive, but it turns out they are dead." Also, it seems about three-four versts farther our truck got stuck between two trees. There where we stopped several of Yermakov's people were stretching out girls' blouses. We discovered again that there were valuables and they were taking them. I ordered that men be posted to keep anyone from coming near the truck.

The truck was stuck and could not move. I asked Yermakov, "Is it still far to the chosen place?" He said "Not far, beyond railroad beds." And there behind the trees was a marsh. Bogs were everywhere. I wondered "Why had he herded in so many people and horses. If only there had been carts instead of carriages." But there was nothing we could do. We had to unload to lighten the truck, but that did not help. Then I ordered them to load the carriages, because it was already light and we did not have time to wait any longer. Only at daybreak did we come to the famous "gully". Several steps from the mine where the burial had been planned, peasants were sitting around the fire, apparently having spent the night at the hayfield. On the way me met several people. It became impossible to carry on our work in sight of them. It must be said, the situation had become difficult. Everything might come to nothing. At that moment I still did not know that the mine would not meet our needs at all. And those damned valuables! Just then I did not know that there was so much of them or that the people Yermakov had recruited were unsuitable for the project. Yes, it was too much! I had to disperse the people. I found out we had gone about 15-16 versts from the city and had driven to the village of Koptyaki, two or three versts from there. We had to cordon the place off at some distance, and we did it. Besides that, I sent an order to the village to keep everybody out, explaining that the Czech Legion was not far away, that our units had assembled here and that it was dangerous to be here. I ordered the men to turn back anybody to the village and to shoot any stubborn, disobedient persons if that did not work. Another group of men was sent to the town because they were not needed. Having done all of this, I ordered [the men] to load the corpses and to take off the clothes for burning, that is, to destroy absolutely everything they had, to remove any additional incriminating evidence if the corpses were somehow discovered. I ordered bonfires. When we began to undress the bodies, we discovered something on the daughters and on Alexandra Feodrovna. I do not remember exactly what she had on, the same as on the daughters or simply things that had been sewed on. But the daughters had on bodices almost entirely of diamonds and [other] precious stones. Those were not only places for valuables but protective armor at the same time. That is why neither bullets nor bayonets got results. By the way, only they had guilt in their dying agony. The valuables turned out to be about one-half pud. Greed was so great that on Alexandra Feodrovna, by the way, there was simply an enormous piece of round gold wire, turned out as a sheer bracelet and weighing about one pound. All the valuables were ripped out immediately, so that it would not be necessary to carry the bloody rags around with us. Valuables discovered by the White Guards were undoubtedly related to those sewed into other things. After burning, they remained in the ashes. Several diamonds were handed over to me the next day by Comrades who had found them there. How did they overlook the other valuables? They had enough time for it. Most likely they simply did not figure it out. By the way, one has to suppose that some valuables will be returned to us through Torgsin ["Trade with foreigners" stores], because they were probably picked up by the peasants of the Koptyaki village after our departure. The valuables had been collected, the things had been burned and the completely naked corpses had been thrown into the mine. From that very moment new problems began. The water just barely covered the bodies. What should we do? We had the idea of blowing up the mines with bombs to cover them, but nothing came of it. I saw that the funeral had achieved nothing and that it was impossible to leave things that way. It was necessary to begin all over again. But what should we do? Where should we put the corpses? About at 2 p.m. I decided to go to the town, because it was clear that we had to extract the corpses from the mine and to carry them to another place. Even the blind could discover them. Besides, the place was exposed. People had seen something was going on there. I set up posts, guards in place, and took the valuables and left. I went to the regional executive committee and reported to the authorities how bad things were. Comrade Safarov and somebody else (I do not remember who) listened but said nothing. Then I found Filipp [Goloshchyokin] and explained to him we had to transfer the corpses to another place. When he agreed I proposed to send people to raise the corpses. At the same time I ordered him to take bread and food because the men were hungry and exhausted, not having slept for about 24 hours. They had to wait for me there. It turned out to be difficult to get to the corpses and lift them out. The men got very exhausted doing it. Apparently they were at it all night because they went there late.

I went to the town executive committee, to Sergei Yergerovich Chutskayev who was its chairman at the time to ask for advice. Maybe he knew of a place. He proposed a very deep abandoned mine on the Moscow high road. I got a car, took someone from the regional Cheka with me, Polushin, it seems, and someone else and we left. But one and a half versts away from the appointed place the car broke down. The driver was left to repair it, and we went on foot. We looked over the place and decided it was good. The only problem was to avoid onlookers. Some people lived near the place and we decided to come and take them away to the town and after the project let them come back. That was our decision. We came back to the car but it had to be towed. I decided to wait for a passing car. A while later some people rode up on two horses. I stopped them. The fellows seemed to know me. They were hurrying to the plant. With great reluctance they gave us the horses.

While we rode another plan took shape: burn the corpses. But nobody knew how to do it. Polushin seems to have said they already knew that because nobody really knew how it would come out. I was still considering the mines on the Moscow high road and then transportation. I decided to get carts. The plan came to me at the thought of failure in burying them in groups in different places. The road leading to Koptyaki is clay near that gully. If we buried them there without onlookers, not even the devil would find them. To bury them and to drive by with the string of carts would result in a mishmash and that would be that. So there were three plans. There was nothing to drive, there was no car. I went to the head of the military transportation garage to find out if there were any cars. There was a car, but it was the chief's. I forgot his surname; it turned out he was a scoundrel and, it seems, he was executed in Perm. Comrade Pavel Petrovich Gorbunov, who is now deputy chairman of the state bank, was the manager of the garage or deputy chairman of military transportation. I do not remember which. I told him I needed a car urgently. He said "I know what for." He gave me the chairman's car. I drove to Voikov, head of supply in the Urals, to get petrol or kerosene, sulphuric acid too (to disfigure the faces) and, besides that, spades. I commandeered ten carts without drivers from the prison. Everything was loaded on and we drove off. The truck was sent there. I stayed to wait for Polushin, the main "specialist" in burning who had disappeared somewhere. I waited for him at Voikov's. I waited for him in vain until 11 p.m. Then I heard he had ridden off on horseback to come to me but he fell off the horse, hurt his foot, and he could not ride. Since we could not afford to get stuck with the car again, I rode off on horseback about midnight with a comrade (I don't remember who) to the place the corpses were. But I also had back luck. The horse hesitated, dropped to its knees and somehow fell on its side and come down on my foot. I lay there an hour or more until I could get on the horse again. We arrived late at night. The work extracting [the corpses] was going on. I decided to bury some corpses on the road. We began to dig a pit. At dawn it was almost ready, but a comrade came to me and said that despite the order not to let anybody come near, a man acquainted with Yermakov had appeared from somewhere and had been allowed to stay at a distance. From there it was possible to see some kind of digging because there were heaps of clay everywhere. Though Yermakov guaranteed that he could not see anything, another Comrade (not the one who had spoken to me) began to demonstrate that from where he had stood it was impossible not to see.

So that plan was ruined too. We decided to fill in the pit. Waiting for evening, we piled into the cart. The truck waited for us in a place where it seemed impossible to get stuck. (The driver was Zlokazov's worker Lyukhanov.) We headed for the Siberian high road. Having crossed the railroad, we transferred two corpses to the truck, but it soon got stuck again. We struggled for about two hours. It was almost midnight. Then I decided that we should do the burying somewhere around there, because at that late hour nobody actually could see us. Only the watchman of the passing track saw several men, because I sent for ties to cover the place where the corpses would be put. The explanation for needing ties was: The ties had to be laid for a truck to pass over. I forgot to say that we got stuck twice that evening or, to be precise, that night. About two months ago, I was looking through the book by Sokolov, the preliminary investigator of the extremely important cases under Kolchak, when I saw a photo of those stacked ties. It was mentioned that the ties had been laid there to let a truck pass. So, having dug up the entire area, they did not think to look under the ties. It is necessary to say that all our men were so tired. They did not want to dig a new grave. But as it always happens in such cases, two or three men started working, then the others began. A fire was made and while the graves where being prepared we burned two corpses: Alexei and Demidova. The pit was dug near the fire. The bones were buried, the land was leveled. A big fire was made again and all the traces were covered with ashes. Before putting the other corpses into the pit we poured sulpheric acid over them. The pit was filled up and covered with the ties. The empty truck drove over the ties several times and rolled them flat. At 5 - 6 o'clock in the morning, I assembled everybody and stated the importance of the work completed. I warned everybody to forget the things they saw and never speak about them with anybody. Then we went back to the town. Having lost us, the fellows from the regional Cheka, such as Comrades Isay Rodzinsky, Gorin and somebody else arrived when we had already finished everything.

In the evening of the 19th I went to Moscow with my report.

before escaping the town, had boasted that "the world will never know what we did with the bodies". However, the earth at length gave up its secret. The bodies had been taken by five lorries to a disused iron pit in the woods, cut up and burned, 150 gallons of petrol being used; one Voikoff of the Urals Cheka (a fellow-passenger of Lenin in the train from Germany) as Commissar of Supplies had supplied 400 lbs. of sulphuric acid for dissolving the bones.

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Jews in Russia

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