A Question from a Friend

[GDSophie]

I'm going to say it right now: THIS ISN'T A THREAD ABOUT ONE OF THEM DEFINITELY SURVIVING. THEY DIED IN THE BASEMENT. THIS IS JUST A THREAD ABOUT A QUESTION MY FRIEND ASKED THAT I NEED HELP ANSWERING

Okay, I don't remember how I got to this conversation with my friend, but I was telling her word for word about the murder of the Romanovs-to the basement all the way to the burial site-when she asked me a curious question:

We know that the body either identified as Maria or Anastasia in the 1991 site had no bullet wounds in her skull, although Ermakov swore he finished her off with a bullet to the head, and that she was most likely the one to have been reported to have sat up and screamed when being carried out. I think we know it's more likely she had been knocked/passed out with enough blood flow for him to believe she was dead-but he was drunk so what would he know-allowing her to save the basement massacre, but die outside the room.

If they had stayed knocked/passed out longer or woke up and played dead for as long as she could, do you think she could have escaped the truck during the time it was left unattended at the burial site and essentially escape all together?

I told her that yes, it could have been a possibility, but she wouldn't have survived to marry, have kids and live happily ever after. The bayonet wounds-the bullets bounced back against the chemise so they don't count-and her head wound, depending how deep it was, probably would have killed her eventually. So she could have escaped, but died shortly after.

Or, if she stayed knocked out, buried alive.

Any thoughts or anything to chime in with?

[Forum Admin]

This has be rehashed over and over and over. Don't forget they discovered the girls had diamond quilted into their undershirts when they tried to stab them to kill them. They stripped their bodies for jewels and so were handling the bodies and would have easily discovered anyone was still alive. NO they all died. Nobody survived even for a short while.

[GDSophie]

This has be rehashed over and over and over. Don't forget they discovered the girls had diamond quilted into their undershirts when they tried to stab them to kill them. They stripped their bodies for jewels and so were handling the bodies and would have easily discovered anyone was still alive. NO they all died. Nobody survived even for a short while.

I searched the forum to see if anyone had brought this up, and no one had. She knows no one survived, she just wanted to know if this could have been a possibility in anyway. I didn't know they had discovered the jewels while stabbing them, I thought they found them when they reached the mine.

[Forum Admin]

The discussion is buried in the Anastasia "surviving" discussions. Yes, the diamonds acted like a "bullet proof" vest when they tried to stab them, and some stones started to fall out when they started moving the bodies.

[GDSophie]

I meant the idea that someone could have survived that way, not the thread itself. I hadn't read anywhere that they had began to fall out, only that they thought it was God intervening when they wouldn't die until they found the bulletproof vest at the burial site but explains it.

[Jeremiah]

We know that the body either identified as Maria or Anastasia in the 1991 site had no bullet wounds in her skull, although Ermakov swore he finished her off with a bullet to the head, and that she was most likely the one to have been reported to have sat up and screamed when being carried out.

Tis question addressed by GDSophie remains unanswered. How come there was no bullet wound on the skull of the last girl to be identified?

[Forum Admin]

 Because Yurovsky said they stabbed and beat her with the guns to kill her. Go read his statements.

[GDSophie]

We know that the body either identified as Maria or Anastasia in the 1991 site had no bullet wounds in her skull, although Ermakov swore he finished her off with a bullet to the head, and that she was most likely the one to have been reported to have sat up and screamed when being carried out.

Tis question addressed by GDSophie remains unanswered. How come there was no bullet wound on the skull of the last girl to be identified?

Because Yurovsky said they stabbed and beat her with the guns to kill her. Go read his statements.

FA is right. Ermakov's statement about shooting her directly in the head was false and unreliable anyway because he was drunk. Yurovsky explains how they killed her in his statements. His is definitely more reliable, more so because he was sober.

[LisaDavidson]

Hi GD Sophie: I first heard about the Imperial Family in 1965, when I was 11 years old - over 50 years ago! Like many of you, including maybe your friend, I had trouble accepting that they were all dead that horrible night. So I started studying and I haven't stopped since.

As to the question of whether it was possible that someone survived, of course, the answer is yes, in the knowledge that nearly anything is possible. But that isn't really a well considered question. What would be better to ask is: is it probable that someone survived?

In my opinion, the answer is unequivocally no. It is not probable. I have looked at this crime from many angles. I've had charts all over my house, pages of notes. No, as much as many of us would hope, no one survived. And I tend to think that no one who participated in these killings or who has studied these crimes really emerges unscathed, they were really that horrific. Again, this is my well considered opinion and your friend is welcome to ask others.

[Jeremiah]

Because Yurovsky said they stabbed and beat her with the guns to kill her. Go read his statements.

Hi Rob, I did read Yurovsky’s accounts, and I have not the slightest doubt that all of the family have perished that dreadful night. Yet, according to what you have written on another thread, which is really true:

“Yurovsky wrote a lot of things that were contradictory or plain out lies. You must read his words with caution and scepticism. He was writing for his Soviet audience, not an accurate historical account.”

So, deep in my mind I left one little door open: I cannot feel sure that one or two members of the family were not still alive (half-dead) and were removed from the truck during the time it was left unattended at the burial site, -but of course, only to die a few moments later.

[Forum Admin]

Believe whatever makes you happy. We do know that Yurovsky's men were looting the bodies finding valuables which Yurovsky made them all turn over before the bodies went out to the trucks. This account is reliable because several sources mention it as well as Yurovsky.  So the bodies were all being handled and clearly if someone was still alive they would have noticed. Every person who has studied these events in full detail has pretty much come to the conclusion that none of the Imperial Family and their retainers left that room alive

[TimM]

 

I first heard about the Imperial Family in 1965, when I was 11 years old - over 50 years ago! Like many of you, including maybe your friend, I had trouble accepting that they were all dead that horrible night.

Of course, back then, one could still hope that one of them survived. 

However, once the bodies were found and DNA testing confirmed their identities, that was the end of that idea.  The whole family died that night, and all the claimants that popped up throughout the 20th Century were phonies.

[Jeremiah]

Believe whatever makes you happy.

I apologize if my post did not sound as it should. I don’t mean to be rejecting of what has been accepted. I just expressed a thought that has stayed with me a long time now, since reading Radzinsky’s book. I’m sorry…

[Forum Admin]

I apologize if I came across as harsh. These issues have been discussed over and over several years ago after the second remains were found. It was just frustrating that they came up yet again.

[Jeremiah]

I fully understand.

Unfortunately, I think, this issue will always keep coming up, especially every time a new generation “joins in”. The story of the IF is so appealing that it will always raise good-hearted doubts. I think we should be open and receptive to their questions and thus provide a serious, sober, and gentle answer to them. In this way, we could prevent the perpetuating of this “X-file theory”.

As for my thought, as I wrote, it was just based on Radzinsky being a notable historian and investigator of the case -and yet expressing such a thought. Nevertheless, I fully agree that none survived that room.

Thanks for bearing with us all (well, at least some of us), Rob.