105 years ago, on the night of 16/17 July 1918, the Romanov family and their attendants were killed in Ekaterinburg.
Pierre Gilliard, the beloved tutor of the imperial children, was one of the first people to enter the Ipatiev House after the murders. As part of the Sokolov Investigation into the crime and the subsequent media frenzy, he gave these statements:
“…the stoves; they were all full of various burned articles. I recognised a considerable number of burned things such as tooth- and hair-brushes, pins and a number of small things bearing the initials: "A. F." [Alexandra Feodorovna.]”
"I then went to the lower storey, the greater part of which was a basement. I entered with intense emotion the room in which, perhaps, they had died. Its aspect was most sinister. Daylight came in through a window with iron bars across it. The walls and the floor bore marks of bullets and bayonet thrusts. It was quite obvious that a dreadful crime had been committed there, and that several people had been killed. In my despair believed that the Emperor had perished, and, that being the case, I could not believe the Empress had survived him… Yes, it was quite possible that they had both been killed. And the children? Had they also been massacred? I could not believe it. The idea was too horrible. And yet everything seemed to prove that the victims had been numerous."
Nicholas II Alexandrovich Romanov (1868-1918) Alexandra Feodorovna Romanova (1872-1918) Olga Nikolaevna Romanova (1895-1918) Tatiana Nikolaevna Romanova (1897-1918) Maria Nikolaevna Romanova (1899-1918) Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova (1901-1918) Alexei Nikolaevich Romanov (1904-1918) Dr. Evgeny Sergeievich Botkin (1865-1918) Anna Stepanova Demidova (1878-1918) Ivan Mikhailovich Kharitonov (1872-1918) Alexei Aloise Egorovich Trupp (1856-1918) Ortipo (1914-1918) Jimmy (1915-1918)
SOURCES: The Last Days of the Romanovs, Telberg, Wilton, Sokolov. The Crime of Ekaterinburg, Illustrated London News
