Execution of Tsar Nicholas II and his family
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia with the family (left to right): Olga, Maria, Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana. Photo taken in 1913.
In the early hours of 17 July 1918, the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, told to dress, and led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house. The pretext for this move was the family’s safety — that anti-Bolshevik forces were approaching Yekaterinburg, and the house might be fired upon. There are also unsubstantiated claims that the family was led to the basement under the pretense that family photographs would be made.
Ipatiev House, where the Imperial Family was murdered. The left lower-level (small) arched window is the room where they executed. The Ipatiev House was ordered to be demolished by Boris Yeltsin in 1977 in the hopes of stopping the many people who came to honor the memory of the Imperial Famiy’s murder.
Present with Nicholas, Alexandra and their children were their doctor and three of their servants, who had voluntarily chosen to remain with the family—the Tsar’s personal physician Eugene Botkin, his wife’s maid Anna Demidova, and the family’s chef, Ivan Kharitonov, and footman, Alexei Trupp. A firing squad had been assembled and was waiting in an adjoining room, composed of seven Communist soldiers from Central Europe, and three local Bolsheviks, all under the command of Bolshevik officer Yakov Yurovsky. The soldiers are often described as Hungarians; in his account, Yurovsky described them as “Latvians”.
Yakov Mikhailovich Yurovsky (1878-1938), executioner of the Russian royal family in 1918. After all the firing was done, it was found that Tsarevich Alexei was still alive and Yurovsky went up to the Tsarevich and shot him in the head.
Nicholas was carrying his son; when the family arrived in the basement, the former empress complained that there were no chairs for them to sit in. Yurovsky ordered chairs brought in, and when the empress and the heir were seated, the executioners filed into the room. Yurovsky announced to them that they had been condemned to death by the Ural Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. A stunned Nicholas asked, “What? What?” and turned toward his family. Accounts differ on whether Yurovsky quickly repeated the order or whether he simply shot the former emperor outright. One witness among the several who later wrote accounts of Nicholas’s last moments reported that the Tsar said, “You know not what you do,” paraphrasing Jesus’s words on the cross.
A photograph of the room where the execution of the Imperial Family took place in the basement of the Ipatyev House.
The executioners drew revolvers and the shooting began. Nicholas was the first to die; Yurovsky shot him multiple times in the chest (sometimes incorrectly said the head, since his skull bore no bullet wounds when it was discovered in 1991). Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets. They were stabbed with bayonets and then shot at close range in the head.
L to R: A photograph of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia in prison shortly before their murders. They were the last to die.
An announcement from the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Government emphasized that conspiracies had been exposed to free the ex-tsar, as well as how counter-revolutionary forces were pressing in on Soviet Russian territory, and that the ex-tsar was guilty of unforgivable crimes against the nation.
In view of the enemy’s proximity to Yekaterinburg and the exposure by the Cheka of a serious White Guard plot with the goal of abducting the former Tsar and his family… In light of the approach of counterrevolutionary bands toward the Red capital of the Urals and the possibility of the crowned executioner escaping trial by the people (a plot among the White Guards to try to abduct him and his family was exposed and the compromising documents will be published), the Presidium of the Ural Regional Soviet, fulfilling the will of the Revolution, resolved to shoot the former Tsar, Nikolai Romanov, who is guilty of countless, bloody, violent acts against the Russian people.
Nobility.org Editorial comment: —
The murder of the Russian Imperial Family was the signal for the beginning of the wholesale butchery that has forever become synonymous with Communism.
No one will ever know the number of this philosophical sect’s victims, but they are estimated to surpass 100,000,000. They were killed out of pride, in the mad pursuit of an unnatural, egalitarian utopia.
After Abel’s murder, God cursed Cain saying: “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” (Gen. 4:10.)
God’s curse is upon egalitarian Communism as well. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the West convened no “Nuremburg trial” to condemn the philosophical errors and the criminals who visited so much suffering on mankind, but “God is not mocked” (Gal. 6:7) and He does not forget. The blood of countless victims cries out to Him for vengeance.
