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Show I AUTHOR INTERVIEWS SLAYER OF ROMANOFFS uM . i . i ' - - - HORROR SCENE DESCRIBED BY Czar's Murderer Trembles With Rane When Asked Dc tails of Bloody Slaughter Editor Not Xlchouifl Romon-ff, Romon-ff, i a i- .f ltussa, abdicated hi-throiu hi-throiu in tnc beginning r the Kcr-enskj Kcr-enskj rovoluilon Iti ti"' uprtng bi I1M " and I I . Under Kiiard with his court nt Tzarskos-Si ' for N'.iin months, flnallj im-Ihr reniov-cd reniov-cd with bis famllj and horvants to BkatCtinburg in Aufcusi ioit. lie : was constantly under guard there uni.il the Cxc'lis approached the town. Pi aiing that he might ,M-rrcod ,M-rrcod be tlienii ITurovsky, ordered him and his fam:" killed. In n jiii ping article bj t nptaln Met ul- j la.'h ol the British ormj who in-Lcrvicwcd in-Lcrvicwcd Vumvskj and niadc a careful Invest! atlon of the assom-Inatlon, assom-Inatlon, the itIiiic : (i-riiMd m i "The Nlnetecntli Oohtury and Aft- i er" and Is herewith reproduced hi pan b permission or ih Leonard s -on Publishinj; i n. Purovskv, P.olshevlst commissiir a: I Kkaterinburg, the 'czar's murderer.", went to the czar s quarters In Ippa-tlevaky Ippa-tlevaky House? a: 1 o clock on i'ae morning of July 10, 1918 and toid tin.' car that the Czechs were near and that he and his family would be safer In the basement. 'I he czar and his family at once dressed and went to the cellar. It was a pathetic procession. mataTO composed (if helpless Women and u crippled invalid child of l i years, most helpless of all. There were two women wo-men and lour gentle girls There was; Tatiana, 21. talented and klndlj voting;; woman, dest ined by court gos3ips to ; he the future (p cen of England; Aid. 28; Maria, 10, Anastasla, IT; the last' named as fragile and lovely as an opening flower The emperor iind his wife went first, arm In arm. dignified but trembling. The res' of the party walked accord-i ing to rankj the maid and cook being last. The paityfc reached the cellar. czar Tin Haggard The czar and his famll- clustered, together at one end of the under- ground chamber. Tatiana holding a little dog In her arms, while the Lett soldiers. Yurovsky and n;s companions remained in deep silence at IhC other end, the soldiers looking with strained strain-ed and expei t ant eyes The scene was lighted With several BtablS lanterns, some of them held In ,lhe shaky hands of the soldi, i . gome Of thorn resting on the dining room t.i'le. ' The former autocrat of All the Russians Rus-sians was so thin and haggard as to bo hardly recognlsial'le He wore a khaki- colored militar blouse, belted at the waist, loose blue breeches, soft leather high Loots, but no cap. All of the members of the imperial family had cut their hair a few days before because of vermin in-the house. iiii D'S RIPPLED son s HAND The ocarina held her little crippled son by the hand and the Grand Huch-ess Huch-ess Tatiana carried In her arms the little Pekingese dog lirachkovsky and Uetvletev Uoi-Ishevlkl Uoi-Ishevlkl guards) drew their revolvers The empress look one. swift, frightened fright-ened look at the revolvers and the pitiless countenances behind them and her eyes dilated with horror Crossing herself, she bent her head and covered her face with her hands. STuxoVsky read a brief document. It was simply an order of the Soviet republic re-public to execute "Nicholas Romanoff, !the Bloody, and all his family." Vu-rovskj Vu-rovskj shouted it out rather than read ,i and ho hardly glanced at the pap. r the contents of which he knew by i heart, for he and Goloshokin had written writ-ten It only an hour before. The party fell on ir knees, only: the emperor remained standing. TRIES rO SHIELD FAMILY The emperor stepped quickly in i front of hi wife and children as If to shield them With his own body, polnt-niK polnt-niK to his little ones crouching togeth- . r. terror-stricken, on their knees. His words were inaudible. Yurovsky Instantly determined to, prevent all possibility of Nicholas Ko-manoff Ko-manoff making a moving, human ap-1 peal for his young girls and crippled boy. which might touch even the hard, hearts of the executioners. , HLs hand rose like a flash: he fired.; and at the same instant the emperor I reeled and fell, shot through the brain The czar had meant to beg that his wife and children be not butch. r d, but now, as ever, he was loo late; and! though the noble gerture came, the words had not time to follow. Tho gny-y.ly shape that had dogged him all his life rushed on him like a thunderbolt, thunder-bolt, and the greatest historical trag-' 'edy of Europe since the execution of Louis XVI was consummated. I KTREME l Hilt I 1JTV The fatal shot was the signal for trrr; others to begin shooting, which they did wildly, and in five minutes all of the party sa.- Grand Duchess Tatiana and lb,- maid. Deniodova, had been killed Tatiana. who was wounded, fainted and lav like the dead, her little dog standing on top of her and, barking at the ground, until ihey killed kill-ed him. The lumps crashed on the ground, some were broken and flared up, filling fill-ing the cellar with the yellow, smoky glare. The close, rnurky atmosphere was Ht by flashes of firearms and, in the confined space thy nols was deaf-! ening. The soldiers were mad with rage and drunk with blood. They not only1 bayohetted bodies alreads dead but I. eat ill th skuMs of corpses with the butt end of th ir rifles. The maid lJ modova used a cushion cush-ion to leat up he muzzles of the rifles pointed at the cfllldren, so that a half dozen bullets glanced striking the upper up-per part oi the wall One of these stray bullets t ok the tips of three fin-; gcrs off Vuro sky s left hand. Yurovsky vis about to seek mcdl- cal attention pstairs when there was a shriek from the beautiful grand duchess who sat up. shouting 'Moth-, er! Mother!" Two or three soldiers Instantly jumped to her and while some ran their bayonets through her. others btat her head In with the butts of their rifles. Tatiana was ihe last of the parl i to be killed With her death Yurov-I sky took himself off to have his hand; bandaged, leaving orders for the removal re-moval of the bodies and their destruc- tlon. Disposal OF BODIES After the shooting of the imperial j family In the cellar at Kkaterinburg , Yurovsky anxious, not only from mo-1 lives of policy but from superstition, tul effectually rid himself of the bodies and insure against their subsequent, recognition, had them wrapped In I while blankets, loaded aboard motor , lorries and took them with a picked j party of soldiers northwest of the' ' town Yurovsky and his aid. Golosho- j ' kin. accompanied the parly. Yurovsky was in such a stale ofi nerves that he could not decide Where to bury the bodies H- stopped once on the way and even had the bodies I removed trom the carts, only to dc-i clde that the place was too exposed- Goloshokin flnall) insisted that the cremation" be carried out at the Isetsky mine A pile of wood was collected and the bodies were placed on it. the body of the czar lelng placed on top. i The carcass of the dog was thrown by, a soldier Into some bushes. POURS CII OVl R PACE, Yourosky then made one; soldier fill with sulphuric acid a jug he had brought while another uncovered the annointed head of Nicholas, once au I tocrat of All the Russia, ruler of the 1 Russian church. Holy Orthodox Czar. ' exposing the ashy face, the glassy OySS, the hair and beard, stiff with blood. Rending gently down, like a priest, ' performing sbme solemn religious rite, j Yurovsky carefully pressed the lips of the Jug against that cold brow and poured the burning and obliterating obliterat-ing liquid over the dead man's fea- tures. Had this frightful seen,- been pre-! ! sented to the emperor in the days of his greatness, when he followed with intense Interest all attempts of wizards I to unveil the future, he would have scoffed at the prophecy LEFT OTHERS TO SOLDIER, Yurovsky left the obliteration of the' other faces to one of the soldiers and when this revolting part of the ghastly ghast-ly work was done, two barrels of petrol were emptied over the corpses, soak-, ing the ground and wetting the fune-' ral pyre. Everybody then stood back arid Ihe1 pile was lighted, the flann.-, shooting1 up to a height of twenty feet. The. corpses had been all consumed, but' Yurovsky noticed that one blackened' and grinning skull was distinguished I from the others by callosity due to! a wound which the emperor received in Japan. Fearing tb's would lead to Identification, he smashed the skull I to bits with a spade and threw the fragments back on the fire. Before treating the other skeletons In the same way. the soldiers made ten and drank vodka, some of them lying down and sleeping Night was coming com-ing on when they resumed their ghast-l ghast-l labors, piling fresh fuel on the flames to consume remaining bones. MOVED LUCE RESTLESS FIEND Yurovsky moved about ceaselessls' like a restless fiend by tho fires of hell. His left hand was In a souk 1 due to ilu wound received during the murder) and with his right he was forever picklne up bones. Jewelry, human hu-man teeth, trinkets, ami bits of cloth and throwing them In the flames. Noticing that one of the articles Yurovsky picked up, glittered like a ruby, Lovathnykh began to assist him. Soon others were busy picking up gems and Jewels. The cushions the imperial family had carried wore packed with gems and bank notes. Even now there must be Jewels worth a king's ransom In the hands of peasants who found them near the fire. Finally Yurovsky was satisfied that the work was "well done" and sent th soldiers back to town, following them after the night tu make sure that the blood-stained lorry had ben scraped clean of all traces of its burden. bur-den. ITUROVSKY NOW OUTCAST. Yurovsky, murderer of the czar, u Russian Jew. is now inspector of life insurance for the province of Ekaterinburg, Ekater-inburg, and is supplied with an excel-! lent hous.- and all comforts by the Bolshevlki. However, he is treated as an outcast and none will have any-1 thing to do with him. Captain Me-1 Cullagh could find no one Who would take him to Yurovsky and finally, under un-der pretense Of asking questions con-! corning life insurance, called at Yu-j rovsky's house alone His story of thai experience follows. It was with a certain amount of con-' strlctlon In the heart that 1 walked I into the passage. The passage was long and dark and at the end stood a, man, slightly benr and In a suspicious! and expectant attitude. It was Yu-I roVSky. I saw that this terrible mon-! St) r was standing In the same attitude that ho had waited outside the czar's bedroom 00 the night of the murder It was Yurovsky. the czariclde! He Is a man of about 40 years and i he is grayish and wrinkled and looks' much older. H- wore an unkempt. grayish moustach and uncombed brown hair and ho had not shaved for some days Mis face was sallow, square and not distinctly Jewish, and his eyes were greenish In hue and fill-, ed with a cold, hard look of distrust. I He wore a great black fur coat which reached to the ground and un-1 derneath it were pajamas. He wore! cloth slippers and his w hole appear- j anoe made me think he had beeni sleeping I tried lo overcome u strong feel-1 Iiik of repugnance which swept mej and I reached out my hand and clasped clasp-ed tho limp, clammy and rather un-l willing hand which hung by his side the hand that murdered the czar! 1 knew nothing of Insurance but began be-gan to speak rapidly and in a hectic manner on the subject. SUFFERS FROM HEART DISEASE. He bade me sit down and himself collapsed into au arm chair and remain-U silent for a few seconds, lle apologized lor his costume, saying he suffered from hcurt disease. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him nv he hadn't suffered It since the night of the murder but 1 bit Lack the words. Yurovsky told me of his comrades of the murder and how Goloshokin had died of typhus and of his (Yu-rovsky's) (Yu-rovsky's) mother's death. He spoke for a long time with evident feeling. (Captain McCullOgh says that h had talked with a correspondent who told him that Yurovsky 's mother before be-fore her death had been ' savagely proud that her son had now a secure pia. e In history.") yurovsky told me of the atrocities committed by th0 Whites and once he said. "What are 60 men':'' It wius1 this terrible question that made tno realize that 1 was beginning to forget I was In the lair of u human tiger and face to face with a devil incarnate. liut. though Yurovsky speaks lightly light-ly of large numbers done to death, he COQnot bear to speak of the 11 deaths about which 1 w;is anxious to get details. de-tails. He always referred to his imperial! victim as the Autocrat," and a bale-! ful light came into his eyes every time; he used the word Rut he has the! same reluctance to speak of Ihe murder mur-der In the cellar as a man suffering from partial insanity sometimes has of spi ikitiL- of his delusions. TREMBLES WITH RAGE OR HORROR. Approach the subject and ho trem-bles trem-bles with i age or horror or Incipient ' insanity. ly own precarious position made it1 impossible for me to probe too deeply into that festering mental wound. I got no information from him on lhei murder. Yurovsky is an intelligent man audi has read much Red literature. I got I much information from him on tho insurance in-surance and benefit system of tho Bo!-' sheviks. He hiis only contempt for the mod-! Orates of the revolution. While we were talking his son and daughter, about the age of the dead CZar'S Slain children, entered the room Glad of the Interruption. 1 took my leave. |
