Stories of Survivors of Ipatiev House Murder

[rskkiya]

No.

[Janet_W.]

Jeremygaleaz, we know that the bullets were deflected by certain garments worn by the Grand Duchesses; these garments had small precious jewels sewn into them. But Alexei did not wear any such garment.

[Greg_King]

We ran across a claim in part of Isai Rodzinsky's unpublished testimony that Alexei did have some kind of jewelry on underbeath-if so, this explains Yurovsky's statement that Nikulin emptied his cartridge clip into Alexei, who simply sat there, and was not dead after being shot at close range, having to be finished off with head shots.

Greg King

[JonC]

Greg.

I know this is not about Alexei but speaking of head shots..do you know if the others were also shot in the head? JonC.

[Janet_W.]

My gosh. I stand (actually, sit) corrected.

And now I have to confess that although I've read most of FOTR, I haven't yet finished reading the section re: the final minutes of the massacre. I started, and then . . . the visual images, the horrific brutality to those that despite the chasm of time I have come to know almost as friends . .  . I couldn't continue. I will do so later, when I'm feeling stronger and have the whole day ahead of me to contemplate man's inhumanity to man, then can follow that contemplation with some hard exercise.

[Greg_King]

Greg.

I know this is not about Alexei but speaking of head shots..do you know if the others were also shot in the head? JonC.

No shots were fired after the execution ended (i.e., while the corpses remained in the basement, or were being loaded onto the truck in the courtyard).  So we know therefore the following people died in that room, as they were shot in the head:

Alexandra Feodorovna
Eugene Botkin
Olga Nikolaievna
Tatiana Nikolaievna
Alexei Trupp

Nicholas II was shot multiple times in the chest and by all accounts died in that room

Ivan Kharitonov is mentioned in all accounts as having died in the first volley, but because his remains are so fragmented and incomplete it is impossible to say where he may actually have been hit by the bullets.

As Alexei's remains are missing, all we are left with is the evidence of the executioners-that he was repeatedly shot, but did not die, and was "finished off" by Yurovsky and by Ermakov with bullets and a bayonet.

Demidova, Anastasia, and Marie had no head shots.  All accounts agree that Demidova was pursued and stabbed with bayonets-probably enough to kill her.

According to Yurovsky's unpublished 1922 account, Anastasia and Marie were "finished off" with head shots in the room, yet we also know that both sat up alive some 15-20 minutes later, and that Marie, at least, had no indication of having been shot in the head-therefore the claim that they were "finished off" in this manner is not supported by the facts.  Marie certainly died that night.  As with Alexei, it is impossible to determine the nature of Anastasia's wounds as (as Penny Wilson and myself wrote in "The Fate of the Romanovs") we believe her remains still missing.

Greg King

[LisaDavidson]

Greg: Thank you for the factual summation.

[aislinn_24]

i was just reading the previous forums because eairlier i watched  a movie on pbs about the royal family, since i have always been fascinated with topic and i was wondering if Nicholas II was abdicated also for his son why were they killed in the first place? couldnt they just have gone living normal lives?

[AGRBear]

aislinn,

There is a thread which talks about:

Why They Killed Them.

http://hydrogen.pallasweb.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=revolution;action=display;num=1093821836

Hope this helps answer some of your questions

AGRBear

[aislinn_24]

THANKS
ANOTHER QUESTION, I WAS ALSO WONDERING IF ALEXI WAS SITTING IN THAT CHAIR THAT OTHER  FORUM MEMBERS MENTIONED, STILL ALIVE, AND HE COULDNT WALK HOW WAS IT POSSIBLE FOR HIM TO GET OUT? SINCE THE CHAIR WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM.
 DO YOU THINK HE DIED IN THE ROOM OR WHAT?

[Alexandra_Romanova]

Here is a link to Yurovsky's Account of the Murders:

http://victorian.fortunecity.com/rembrandt/571/yurovsky.html

And, I think that Alexei may have died in the room, but they took his body a buried it somewhere else. That way, the bodies could not be identified right away as the Royal families remains. That theory is from a friend.

[AlexeiLVR]

My friend and I have discussed Alexei's survival and IF he actually survived! i thought that there was no chance of that because someone with Hemophilia couldn't of survived getting shot and then being burned!

And then my friend found out that a way to heal a cut or a wound of a bleeder is to burn it! So if Alexei was shot and then thrown into a fire the bleeding could of stopped!

I've read a survival store about Alexei where the man who claimed to be Alexei  had rolled away from the fire where he was thrown with the rest of his family!

So what do all of you think, could have Alexei survived getting burned or not?

[Annie]

It would be nice to hope, but by the time they got to the forest he would have already been dead if he wasn't already. It took them  a long time and the truck broke down or got stuck in the mud several times. Also, if he was burning, he couldn't just get up and go, oh okay, I'm cured now, and walk away. Besides that he couldn't walk anyway because of his fall down the stairs in the sled.

If anyone else disagrees with me please post your opposing ideas.

[Denise]

Yes, Annie, you are correct!  I saw this question on the thread called "Alexei" when another of our younger posters posed the same question.  There are responses to this there that go into greater detail....

[AGRBear]

Welcome to our forum.

Since young Alexei did have hemophilia and if he was hurt with bullets and bayonets,  he would not have survived had he rolled through a fire to stop the bleeding.  

Hemophilia hurts a person because they can't stop bleeding so these kinds of  wounds would have gone too deep and  the fire couldn't have reached.

AGRBear