Yurovsky.

When I took my duty as commander, the question already stood about liquidating the Romanov family, since the Czechoslovaks and the Cossacks were closing in on the Urals, closer and closer to Ekaterinburg.

On 16 July, 1918, about 2 o´clock in the afternoon, comrade Filipp came to the house and presented me with the resolution from the Executive Committee to execute Nicholas. It was pointed out that the kitchen boy Sednev, playmate to the tsarevich, must be removed. He told me that during the night, a comrade will arrive and say the password "chimneysweep", to him the corpses must be given, and he will get rid of them.

I called the boy Sednev and told him that his uncle wanted to see him, and therefore I was sending him away.

Restlessness began in the Romanov family. As always, Dr. Botkin immediately came to me and asked me to tell him where the boy was sent. I told him also what I had told the boy, but he was still somewhat concerned. Later, Tatiana came, saying that Alexei missed him, but I calmed her, saying that the boy went to see his uncle and would return soon.

Having called the inner guard who were chosen for the execution of Nicholas and his family, I assigned the roles and directed who will shoot whom. I provided them with "Nagan" system revolvers. When I allotted their roles, the Letts said that I spare them the responsibility of shooting the girls, because they would not be able to do that. I decided it would be for the best to completely free these comrades from the shooting as they are clearly not capable of performing their revolutionary duty at the most decisive moment.

Having completed all the appropriate assignments, we waited for the "chimneysweep". However, hours passed, and the "chimneysweep" did not arrive. At 12 o´clock comrade Filipp came into the house again, he brought important news.

Orders had arrived, directly from Moscow, to spare the girls and the boy, for they were going to be taken to Perm, he gave me instructions and told me an extra truck was coming to take the children alive to the train station, the password the driver had to say was "chimney smoke". Annoyed by these recent developments, I told him there was no time to make the necessary alterations to the plans already put in place for the execution of the entire family, there was also the concern that if we separated the children from the parents, panic would set amongst the prisoners, which may cause problems.

I also told him about the suspicions I had about the intentions of the people responsible for such sudden change of plans hours before the execution. Many, including myself, believed destroying the entire dynasty was a revolutionary and historical necessity I would proudly take part in, and we couldn´t give way to sentimentality when something much bigger was at stake. My first impression was that contra revolutionary infiltration was the sole cause of the entire affair. I had, however, no reason to doubt comrade Filipp´s loyalty to the cause, and after he explained to me in full detail the reasons for the decision Moscow had made I remained convinced that this postponement of the liquidation of the younger members of the family was a calculated measure that would benefit the revolution in the long run. I told comrade Filipp not to worry, the orders would be carried out.

I began adjusting the plans previously made. We would still have to kill the servants, when I was eventually be asked to report back to Moscow and write the official account of the events, we couldn´t have any hostile witnesses talking about what had really taken place tonight.

The Ural Soviet had ordered the confiscation of all the objects belonging to the family, and for a murder scene to be staged to discourage the arriving armies. For this purpose, I was going to tell the men in charge of the disposal of the bodies to burn all the family´s clothes in the woods once they arrived.

We wouldn´t allow the children to take any of their belongings with them. We would also have to ask the former grand duchesses and tsarevich to undress in order to confiscate all the jewels they had hidden somewhere in their clothes, something we had found out about shortly after their arrival from Tobolsk. One of our censors had noticed the uncommon way in which they used the word "medicines" in their letters; It seemed like a code word for something different. The small number of valuables we had managed to take from them previously had also made us consider the possibility they were hiding something. We would find out tonight if our suspicions were correct.

That left the issue of how to separate the parents and servants from the children. I didn´t think the prisoners would be able to overpower us or even cause serious trouble if they panicked, but the problems it may cause and the amount of force we would need to use to subdue them was unpredictable and I preferred to avoid the possibilities.

Managing to separate them peacefully was out of the question, I had recently witnessed what had happened when we removed the kitchen boy, how much worse would they react by being told they had to get in a truck without their parents?

I decided it was best for the execution to start as originally planned, only changing a few details. We would get them all in the room already selected for the process, and then I would ask the executioners to shoot directly at the hearts of the person assigned to each of them with order and accuracy, only this time none of them would be assigned to kill the children. In the unlikely event one of the children got hurt in the process, I would need the appropriate medical equipment to take care of the situation.

I met with the chosen executioners again and dismissed most of them, only 5 were necessary. I then spoke to two of the dismissed guards in private, ordered one of them to get hold of four sets of clothes for women and one set for a boy of about 12 to 14 years of age, I gave him money in case he needed to purchase these garments and told him to use force if necessary if all the shops were closed like they probably were at this hour. I told the other one to go to the nearest clinic or hospital and bring along bandages, sutures, alcohol or any other equipment necessary to treat gunshot wounds, I had been trained as a medic during the war so I would take care of any possible unwanted incidents. They seemed confused by these orders and were about to start asking questions, so I told them to hurry and didn´t answer.

Back in the room where I was talking with the remaining executioners, I explained the new orders to them. Pavel Medvedev, Nikulin, Kudrin and Serge Vaganov appeared to accept them without question, but one of the comrades, Peter Ermakov, seemed very disappointed.

_ I am going to kill them anyway! _ he said.

_ Then I will be forced to write a report to the Ural Soviet explaining them about your unwillingness to follow orders. _ I answered. I admired his passion, but a true revolutionary would put aside personal desires for the good of the many.

_ You are an undercover agent! You were sent to sabotage the people´s justice! _ he shouted. I started to worry he may be drunk.

_ Be careful comrade. _ I said calmly. I started considering the possibility of dismissing him as well.

_ But why did they change their minds so suddenly? _ Medvedev asked.

_ Don´t get confused comrade, they will meet their ends. _ I explained. _They are simply more useful to us alive than dead at the moment. You must understand that even though we signed a peace treaty with Germany, because we were completely defeated militarily, we still are in precarious situation and cannot afford to offend them in any way. Just two weeks ago the German ambassador was shot dead. The execution of the former emperor and empress could be treated by Germany as an internal Russian affair, but it would be completely irrational to offend the Germans unnecessarily by killing the daughters, princesses of German blood, when just days before they had been asking about their wellbeing incessantly. It is feared they may use this as an excuse to further invade Russia. The imperialist war is almost over and once the Germans are defeated by the Allies, we will have no reason left to keep the women alive.

_ What about the heir? _ yelled Ermakov_ We cannot allow him to live! He is the heir! That makes him an internal Russian affair!

_ I didn´t understand much, I don´t agree with this particular decision either, something about having a bargain chip with our many enemies in any possible future scenario, the position of the new government is very fragile at the moment. The decision makers in Moscow must have thought more about the possible advantages of keeping him alive than in the dangers. _ I explained _ At least that is what I have been told, we must not be capricious enough to claim understanding of comrade Lenin´s pragmatism. If this calms your fears, comrade Philipp tells me he won´t stay with his sisters for long, they are apparently planning to take him to Moscow. He will be kept away from counterrevolutionaries there, comrades, worst case scenario they will make him a pawn, and if the revolution succeeds and everything goes on as planned, they won´t find any use for him and will finish what we started here, of that I am sure. His fate is sealed.

_ If their fates are sealed, we might as well kill him now and have our way with his sisters, that way they will really have a good use. _ Ermakov said, laughing at the end at his own joke, some of the other executioners also laughed.

_ Stop that. _ I said, annoyed by his lack of discipline and the way he influenced the others to act the same way _ I will not allow any harm to come to the girls. These are orders and if you are not willing to follow them you are free to leave like the Letts.

Ermakov was offended about being compared to the soft Letts, and didn´t say anything else.

Finally, at 1:30 a.m. the "chimneysweep" arrived, followed closely by the "chimney smoke". I told them to wait outside.

I went to the lodgings and woke up Dr. Botkin and told him that everyone had to dress quickly because there were disturbances in the city, and that I must transfer them to a safer place. Not wishing to hurry them, I gave them the opportunity to get dressed and went to see if the medical equipment or the guard with the clothes had arrived, but they had not.

At 2 o´clock I transferred the guards to the lower premises. Told them to place themselves in their arranged order. I led the family downstairs. Nicholas was carrying Alexei in his arms. The rest carried pillows in their hands or other items, two of them carried dogs.

We came down to the lower level to the room previously prepared. Alexandra Feodorovna asked for a chair, Nicholas asked for a chair for Alexei. I ordered the chairs to be brought. Alexandra and Alexei sat down.

I left them there and decided to wait for the guards bringing the equipment and the clothes. Once they arrived, I took the clothes and the equipment upstairs, to the room that once belonged to the grand duchesses.

I returned to the room where the family was and brought the executioners with me. Nicholas stood with his back to me until I announced they were to be shot.

The execution was a disorderly affair, none of the guards followed my instructions. When I shot Nicholas, instead of shooting their respective targets, all of them followed suit and shot Nicholas as well, wanting to be the ones to claim they shot the former emperor. After Ermakov shot his target, Alexandra, the room became chaos with all the guards shooting without aiming. I was disappointed by this utter lack of discipline.

The firing went on for a very long time, and when I was finally able to stop it the room was filled with smoke. Ermakov wanted to finish the injured with bayonets, I allowed him and some of the men to go grab them.

After we entered again, I realized most of the servants were still alive, and one of the grand duchesses appeared to be dead or hurt. I told the guards to get back and finish the remaining living servants, once they did, they had received instructions to take the children upstairs. The maid stood up and started shouting, and the men started bayoneting her in a disorderly manner, I had to inform them that the maid was already dead after a minute or so, this made me consider how much the Cheka needed professional executioners.

Finally, we started dragging the girls upstairs, none of them appeared to be hurt except Maria, whose nose was bleeding, the one on the ground, the oldest, had only fainted. I went ahead to make sure the men behaved, because we were going to have to undress the girls in order to search for the jewels.

Once I arrived in the room, I was met with three hysterical girls sobbing, all their white shirts were covered in blood, but it didn´t belong to them so everything seemed to have gone according to plan. The 4 guards in the room all seemed to be behaving themselves, except for maybe Ermakov, who was taunting Maria.

_ Did that hurt? _ he said making exaggerated gestures to catch her attention, when he wasn´t able to, he turned to the other sisters _ What is all your praying good for now? Do you want to go to the funeral? We are going to sprinkle your parents with acid instead of holy water!

The girls were too upset by the recent events to be offended by Ermakov´s petty jokes. I wondered if they had even heard what he said.

I heard a guard downstairs asking for help, Ermakov went with another man to see what it was all about.

_ The little one needed a few slaps, that is all. _ said Ermakov when he returned, behind him were two men dragging Anastasia by the arms, she wasn´t putting any resistance.

I told Ermakov to go get the boy so we could undress these girls quickly and be done with it, I knew he was the least likely not to overstep boundaries.

_ I am going to need you to take off all of your clothes_ I said in a serious tone, standing in front of them_ and by all I mean all, I need to be sure you are not hiding anything valuable in them, after you are done you will dress with these new clothes we have brought, they are in the cot_ I said, pointing to the cot I was referring to.

I don´t know what I was expecting to happen, but none of the girls made a move, they just looked at each other terrified. The oldest one started crying harder, whimpering and cleaning her nose with her hands.

_ We don´t have anything_ Tatiana managed to say between troubled breaths.

_ I know about the "medicines" _ I said, putting special emphasis on that last word, Tatiana seemed shocked and even hurt that I knew, she looked at her sisters and back at me repeatedly and after a moment said:

_ Can we at least change our clothes off in privacy? We will give you everything, we promise.

_ No, I can´t know for sure you won´t hide the jewels again in your new clothes unless we stay here. None of the men will harm you, I have forbidden it.

Nothing. No movements to do as I said, just more weeping.

_ If you don´t do as I say I will be forced to ask my men to do it by force. _ I said.

_ Maria doesn´t have any jewels, we sewed them when we were back at Tobolsk and she was here, can´t you spare her the humiliation at least? _ This time it was the oldest one, Olga, talking.

_ I have no reason to believe anything you say. _ I responded.

_ But… _ Tatiana tried to say.

_ Do it. _ I said to my men, and I went downstairs to see why it was taking Ermakov so long to take an invalid boy upstairs. I heard the screams of the girls behind me.

When I got to the cellar, I found myself feeling angry at Ermakov for the first time, instead of simply annoyed. He was definitely drunk.

_ Die, die, die already you little shit! _ Ermakov yelled while trying to stab the boy on the ground in the stomach with his bayonet. The boy in turn whimpered and used his hands to drive the bayonet away from his body, I don´t know how he had managed to defend himself from a grown man for so long. The point of the bayonet was already red, showing he had managed to pierce his stomach at least slightly.

_ Comrade Ermakov! Enough! _ I yelled, and he stopped his attack on the boy. _ Go back upstairs immediately!

He didn´t obey, instead he walked around the room, groaned and made angry sounds like a little spoiled bourgeois child. He then started bayoneting the corpses of the emperor and empress, in front of a very scared and horrified child.

I went to the boy, carried him in my arms and took him upstairs, the boy was blubbering, tense and avoided looking at my face. He moaned in pain when I picked him up.

Back in the room saw that the grand duchesses had started undressing themselves in order to avoid being undressed by force by my men. Their heads were low, and they were silently weeping, Maria was the girl that had completely undressed the fastest and she was sitting in the corner of the room next to a cot crying, covering her breasts and genitals with her hands and with her eyes shut close. I saw that some of the men had already found the jewels that were sewn in the shirts and corsets of three of the girls, and they were trying to separate the jewels from the fabric, our suspicions were right.

When I entered with the boy the sisters looked worried and even Maria raised her head to look at him. The oldest one looked as if she had seen a vision, she let out a huge breath she had been holding and seemed surprised and relieved we had also spared her brother. I went to the other room, that once belonged to the boy and his parents, and dropped him in the cot, I left him there and went to see if the guards were finished confiscating the jewels.

Once the 4 girls were completely naked, I asked the guards to make sure they hadn´t hidden anything. The men started harassing the girls, asking them to turn around and uncover their breasts to see for sure they had taken everything, although it was clear they didn´t have anything left. Ermakov, who was back upstairs, did so gladly. In the other room, Alexei could be heard moaning in pain which alarmed the girls, Anastasia even tried to leave the room to see what was going on, but I stopped her and told her to go back.

_ Let me see_ Ermakov said_ groping the breasts of a very hysterical Maria, who let out a scream. Medvedev and Nikulin followed suit and did the same with the other girls, groping them laughing at them and making jokes. The shocked and terrified girls screamed as they had when we were shooting into the room downstairs and tried to crawl back into the room as far as they could.

Then I saw something that really infuriated me, the remaining two guards were taking some of the jewels and putting them in their pockets.

_ Stop that! _ I yelled, pointing my gun at them. _ Anyone who steals any of the confiscated objects, will be shot. Give it back. _ I extended my hand, the thieves complied quickly, clearly scared by the threat.

I ordered the guards, who were now talking to the girls in a crude manner and trying to force them to dance, to stop goofing around and to start picking up the jewels and clothes collected and take them to my office. Once the men had left the room, I closed the door under lock and key to give the women some privacy to dress up with the new clothes, I gave them a towel and told them to clean themselves as much as they could before doing it.

After I had washed my hands, I went to see if the boy´s condition was serious. I found him laid on the cot where I had left him, his face red from crying. I took his sailor shirt off, and he tried to struggle with me as I checked his wounds, he writhed the whole time I was treating him, but he was too weak to cause me any trouble.

He wailed very loudly both when I started to clean his wounds and when I started with the stitches, not only from the pain; I could see in his strained facial expressions and the way he tried to push me away that it was upsetting to him having the man who had killed his father treating him.

The damage was superficial, the two wounds in his stomach very small and the internal organs intact; the wounds on his hands were actually worse than the ones on his stomach. Apparently, the boy had injured his hands trying to protect his chest and stomach from Ermakov´s bayonet.

The only strange thing was the unusual amount of bleeding for such small wounds. I had once asked Dr. Botkin what was the nature of the illness that made the boy a cripple, but he had told me he wasn´t comfortable answering as it was a private family affair. I now suspected it was some sort of blood disease.

I finished the stitches and bandaged each of his hands and then the torso. The boy was no longer screaming, only crying when I left him sitting in the cot. I took off his boots to make sure he wasn´t hiding anything before I left. Considering the girls had all their jewels in their shirts and corsets and I had already looked under his shirt, I assumed the boy probably didn´t have any.

Back in the sisters´ room I found them all dressed up with the new corsets, white shirts and dark gray skirts, very similar to their original clothes but these skirts were darker and the garments cheaper. Only their original shoes they had kept, as the guard hadn´t considered buying them. They were all close together sitting in the ground crying silently, by order of birth. Olga reclined her head in Tatiana´s shoulder, Maria did the same from the opposite side, and Anastasia reclined her head in Maria´s shoulder.

I went to grab the boy´s clothes, he would also keep his original boots.

I told the sisters they could now go see his brother. The girls hugged him one by one and kissed his cheeks, clearly glad to see him. I gave the clothes to Tatiana, who helped her brother change. Their new clothes were all simple and middle-class, but it wasn´t a huge change for any of the children, since they already dressed quite modestly.

Once they were all dressed and together, I escorted the children outside to the "chimney smoke" truck, Maria was carrying Alexei, now that Nicholas was gone. The truck were the bodies would be carried was just in front, but the guards hadn´t carried the bodies out just yet.

Still with tears in their eyes, they all got in the truck, that drove them away from the Ipatiev house. I never saw them again. I went back inside to help with the disposal of the bodies, which would prove to be an even harder task.