The Truth About the Tragedy of the Romanovs

In a moving account, Marc Ferro refutes a true taboo in history and sheds light on one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th century. On the night of July 16–17, 1918, in the Urals region, Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, and their children—Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexei the Tsarevich—were executed by the Bolsheviks. Marc Ferro, however, never believed this official version. Based on documents and with the rigor of great historians, he questions the murder of the Romanovs. Judges and witnesses suddenly killed or executed, truncated documents, underutilized parts of the investigation file, and controversial DNA tests confront him with an unconfessable and sacrilegious hypothesis: the tsarina and her daughters were saved thanks to a secret agreement between the Bolsheviks and the Germans, from which point onward—and forever—they were to remain silent about their survival. Only the fate of Tsarevich Alexei remains unknown, due to a lack of sources.