A Century Ago, the Romanovs Met a Gruesome End
Helen Rappaport’s new book investigates if the family could have been saved
By Anna Diamond
Smithsonian Magazine | Subscribe
July 2018
On the night of July 16, 1918, seven prisoners, and their four attendants, were led into a basement by roughly the same number of guards. There, they were shot, bayoneted and clubbed. Their bodies were first disposed of in a mine shaft, then retrieved and deposited into a shallow grave in the Koptayki Forest.
By the time the sun rose on Yekaterinburg, Russia, the next morning, “nothing less than ugly, crazed and botched murder†had taken place, writes Helen Rappaport. Overseeing the messy execution was Yakov Yurovsky, a Bolshevik commandant. The victims were the former Tsar, Nicholas II, his wife, Tsarina Alexandra, their five children and four loyal servants.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/romanovs_helen-rappaport-new-book-180969336/#ygYYRFscvv9OwOAF.99
