EX-CZAR AND FAMILY

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2123, 4 May 1920, Page 4

EX-CZAR AND FAMILY

ENGLISHMAN'S STORY OF THE TRAGEDY.

There ;iro many versions of how (he ex-Czar ami his family met their fate at the hands of the murdering Bolshevists, Iml probably the most authentic and reliable account is that which a well-known Cornish journalist, Mr Herbert Thomas, contributes to the Cornishman and Cornish Telegraph, he having (he good fortune to interview Mr Arthur H. Thomas, a Camborne mining engineer, who has recently returned, via Vladivostock and America, from the very town where (he assassination of the Imperial Family occurred. Mr Thomas says; “It all happened at Ekaterinburg. . . . Ekaterinburg is a town of some 100,000 inhabitants, and for some days we heard that highly placed personages were expected there, although it was some surprise when the Royal Family weru driven through the town in a motor car. My office boy saw’ the Czar, like many other people, but I did not chance to be in the street at. the time. lie was -housed in a two-storeyed dwelling in the main street, which was surrounded by a hoarding. . . The house was built .against the side of a hill. From the top entrance it was a one-storeyed building, but the lower room was level with the street. It was in this room, which was not a cellar, that the tragedy took place.

‘‘The first we heard of the murder was the public announcement by the Bolshevists, before 2,000 people in the theatre mi July 23rd, 11)18, that the town was being attacked by the Czecho Slovak army (including some White Russians), and that the Bolshevists were evacuating it. If they left the Czar behind it would

moan the return of monarchy and absolutist government; so l hey had, on July 17th, executed the Czar and had removed his family to a place of safety. This was after the Czar luul resided there about three months. .

“No one was allowed to outer the mysterious house until after the Czecho-Slovaks took possession of the town. Early in October I was able to visit the house, for a committee of investigation had been appointed by the local authority. We saw bloodstains on the wall of one of the lower rooms, and 24 bullet boles .in the walls at about the height of a person kneeling. It was considered that the Czar and Ids family must have been huddled together in a corner by their Bolshevisj executioners, and were shut while in a kneeling position. “The bodies have nut been found. 1 have heard since that the actual murderers had been executed by the loeal Soviet, but that may or may not be true. They were not known when t was there, and no one. by confession, had enabled the bodies to bo Tour u. Among burnt rubbish were found jewels, garters, buckles, and other valuables, but no bones. Shafts wore searched, -but no bodies were found, and there the matter rested. Those who were considered to be murdered were the Czar and Czarina, their three daughters and son, Dr. Botkin, court physician, a iady-in-waiting (one of'the princesses), and one or two others.

‘‘One reason why it wa-. thought the bodies might have been thrown down a mine shaft was that about 100 miles north many of the aristocrats, including Mm Grand Duchess Elizabeth, who was about (55, and had devoted her life to Red Cross work, were thrown down a shaft alive, and bombs were dropped and exploded on them by the fiendish Bolshevists. The shattered bodies wore found in the shaft afterwards.”