Anna Anderson's claim to be Grand Duchess Anastasia

[Menarue]

Was there are fifth daughter to be murdered and buried with them? If not then the dna proves who they are.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by Menarue

Was there are fifth daughter to be murdered and buried with them? If not then the dna proves who they are.

Sigh, unfortunately, some do believe in a fifth daughter! A woman named Alexandra DeGraffe claimed to be a child born during Alexandra's 'false' pregancy in between Anastasia and Alexei- legend has it the royal couple were too ashamed to admit they'd produced another girl, and sent her to live in Denmark where a servant of one of the royal relatives adopted and raised her. Another account says Phillipe the mystic, who predicted Alexandra would have a boy, stole the girl at birth to hide his failure and gave her to a Dutch family. Yes, she and AA did meet, and at one time called each other 'sister.'

Seriously, though, I know what you're saying- four different female bodies have been found and all match Alexandra, which should be the end of any speculation. Sadly, there are a few people who have even claimed that the bone fragments found last year were taken from the mass grave instead, and were actually just parts of one of the other three bodies! This is totally unrealistic, since by the accounts of the Reds, they burned the two bodies first, and everything else was dumped in the mass grave. This means for anything from the mass grave to be in the burn pit someone would have had to intentionally take it out, burn it to match the burned bones, and rebury it in the burn pit. WHAT would be the purpose of that? It couldn't be to trick DNA researchers later, since at that time no one had any idea such a thing would ever exist. Also remember they were pressed for time and racing against sunup which is why they went ahead and buried the rest of the bodies, so it is illogical. Some people are just too desperate to believe AN (or Alexei) got away and keep coming up with wild theories. This is why NO amount of testing or DNA profiling of four separate girls will ever stop them. They don't accept the results now, and they'd also reject those, saying they were switched, bungled, tampered with, rigged, etc.

But I do disagree this will never end, it will. There are only a handful of about five or six people who believe these strange things, and eventually they will all die off. We just have to prevent them from recruiting any proteges' in the meantime.

[ChatNoir]

"....recruiting protegees...." My my, it is indeed a scary world out there!

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

. Sadly, there are a few people who have even claimed that the bone fragments found last year were taken from the mass grave instead, and were actually just parts of one of the other three bodies!

I'm one of those skeptics and this is due to how Russia works, they are still hiding, sneaking, lying, obfuscating the whole thing, otherwise, when they said they were done, they would be done. But they're not done. So they're hiding something. What that is, I don't know.

[COUNTESS]

Russia does work that way, but why would there care a titter's damn about a woman who died 90 years ago and was nothing to begin with. She was a child when she died and other than curiosity, what difference does it make?

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by COUNTESS

Russia does work that way, but why would there care a titter's damn about a woman who died 90 years ago and was nothing to begin with. She was a child when she died and other than curiosity, what difference does it make?

That's what I"m trying to figure out. It must be something or they would have been all up front about things long before now. Crazy stuff. I'll be in a straight jacket over this before long. . . .

[OlgaNikolaievna]

It is probably because of peoples' mistrust of Russia that the tests were repeated in laboratories of other countries including America and Austria. All got the same results. There is no need to hide anything about Anna Anderson since she is insignificant to Russia and always was. They knew she was not Anastasia because they knew they had killed the real one. In fact the Russians used to lie about the fact the daughters were dead. Ironically and unfortunately, the lies they left, such as the "Perm sightings", have only served to encourage those looking for survivors! Ultimately, Anderson is null and void because previous tests have already ruled her out as a Romanov.

[ChatNoir]

If they knew that they had killed the real Anastasia, why was Ekaterinburg plastered with posters after the murders, announcing that someone had gotten away with one or more of the family members? Why were Bolshevik soldiers stopping trains looking for Anastasia and Alexei?

[OlgaNikolaievna]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

If they knew that they had killed the real Anastasia, why was Ekaterinburg plastered with posters after the murders, announcing that someone had gotten away with one or more of the family members? Why were Bolshevik soldiers stopping trains looking for Anastasia and Alexei?

Is any of this even true, or just more legends? There is nothing in any official history accounts, all you have are some person's word for it. I don't believe it. Plastered with posters give me a break, they didn't even tell anyone the family was killed or missing, that is ridiculous!

[Elspeth]

Do we have a photo of these posters?

[ChatNoir]

No, we don't. Only several letters to Harriet Rathlef Keilmann from witnesses who saw them in Ekaterinburg. And in his report, Sokolov states that on 21st July, appeals to the populace on the murder of the Tsar were pasted up on the walls of the houses in Ekaterinburg.
And then there is the testimony under oath from Count Carl Bonde of Sweden whose train was stopped in Siberia by Red soldiers looking for Anastasia.

[Anna was Franziska]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

No, we don't. Only several letters to Harriet Rathlef Keilmann from witnesses who saw them in Ekaterinburg.

And then there is the testimony under oath from Count Carl Bonde of Sweden whose train was stopped in Siberia by Red soldiers looking for Anastasia.

This really isn't any hard evidence, considering it came from AA supporters trying to help her case and there is absolutely nothing concrete to back it up.

And in his report, Sokolov states that on 21st July, appeals to the populace on the murder of the Tsar were pasted up on the walls of the houses in Ekaterinburg.

Here is a story from the New York Times on July 20, 1918- it was announced the TSAR only had been killed and the rest of the family moved to 'safety.' This was the Bolsheviks afraid of letting the rest of the world know they'd killed the women, children and servants and giving them a bad name on the world scene as they struggled to control the gov't. They also didn't want the Germans, with whom they were on shaky peace at the time, to know they had killed Alexandra and the girls since the Kaiser had demanded the safe delivery of the "princesses of German blood" in the treaty. So you see, there really isn't any way they'd let anyone in the general public know they were looking for members of the family who had escaped the execution, certainly not with posters or announced train searches, since it wasn't supposed to have happened!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../newspaper.jpg

[Russophile]

Originally Posted by Elspeth

Do we have a photo of these posters?

Several books claim their trains were stopped, houses searched. I don't know about posters. I would have to look into my books. AGRBear would know more about that than me. She has just about everybook on the subject!

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Anna was Franziska

This really isn't any hard evidence, considering it came from AA supporters trying to help her case and there is absolutely nothing concrete to back it up.

AA supporters? These letters came from Russians who were in Ekaterinburg in July of 1918, no more, no less. They were not trying to help any case, just reported what they had seen and experienced.

Here is a story from the New York Times on July 20, 1918- it was announced the TSAR only had been killed and the rest of the family moved to 'safety.' This was the Bolsheviks afraid of letting the rest of the world know they'd killed the women, children and servants and giving them a bad name on the world scene as they struggled to control the gov't. They also didn't want the Germans, with whom they were on shaky peace at the time, to know they had killed Alexandra and the girls since the Kaiser had demanded the safe delivery of the "princesses of German blood" in the treaty. So you see, there really isn't any way they'd let anyone in the general public know they were looking for members of the family who had escaped the execution, certainly not with posters or announced train searches, since it wasn't supposed to have happened!

And in spite of the Russian propaganda, AA told nurse Malinovsky about the last night in Ekaterinburg when the whole family was shot.

[ChatNoir]

I am reading a little about this case again tonight, and here are a few tidbits that may interest (infuriate) some of you:
"Tatiana Nikolaievna, Olga Nikolaievna, Anastasia Nikolaievna, and Marie Nikolaievna were wearing black skirts with white blouses. Their hair (as I recall they were all the same) had grown and now came to the level of their shoulders at the back." (Storozhev) (Ibid., 124-126)

"This may have been a last effort on the part of the Ural Regional Soviet to get at the imperial jewels they knew the Romanovs had brought with them into exile. "We knew they had it from what their lady said," Isai Rodzinsky recalled, though short of instituting a search of the prisoners' clothing, the Bolsheviks had no way to get at them." (Rodzinsky, May 13, 1964, in RTsKhIDNI, f.588, op 3, d.14)

"Yourovsky knew that thousands of rubles worth of jewels remained concealed among the family's clothing. "This question," Yurovsky wrote, "haunted us like a weight around the neck." (Yurovsky, unpublished memoirs,. 1922, in APRF, f.3, op. 58, d.280)

Another interesting tidbit:
"That evening, when Dr. Derevenko arrived, Avdayev brought him into the Ipatiev house and allowed him to examine the tsesarevich's leg; during his visit, however, Alexandra again spoke in German, this time to her daughters. Avdayev warned her for a second time that this was forbidden, though he did not, as he had previously threatened, forbid the doctor any further visits." (Guard duty book, June 18, 1918, in GARF, f. 601, op. 2, d. 24.)

Seems that German was used in the family after all.

[Menarue]

Perhaps she was being polite to the doctor, royalty and nobility usually have impeccable manners and it is considered impolite to converse in a language that the visitor doesn´t speak as fluently in front of him/her.

[Michael HR]

Alexandra must have known German as she spent a large part of her youth living there as well as England. I always thought that English and German would have been her two first languages and spoken fluently by her. French would have followed and then Russian. While the Empress spoke German like a German it does not mean that the children could converse in this language although they may have learnt it in lessons as has been suggested. Throwing together a sentence is not the same as speaking the language

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Menarue

Perhaps she was being polite to the doctor, royalty and nobility usually have impeccable manners and it is considered impolite to converse in a language that the visitor doesn´t speak as fluently in front of him/her.

What on earth do you mean? Dr. Derevenko was a Russian and spoke no German. Denying him access to the Ipatiev House was the guards' means of punishing the Empress for speaking in a foreign language in their presence.

[ChatNoir]

Originally Posted by Michael HR

Alexandra must have known German as she spent a large part of her youth living there as well as England. I always thought that English and German would have been her two first languages and spoken fluently by her. French would have followed and then Russian. While the Empress spoke German like a German it does not mean that the children could converse in this language although they may have learnt it in lessons as has been suggested. Throwing together a sentence is not the same as speaking the language

It has not been "suggested" that the children studied German, but proven by school schedules and workbooks. And I don't think anybody accused AA of speaking German in the beginning, she definitely "threw a sentence together" with a thick Russian accent. But apparently German to her meant a "safe" language in captivity, the guards would not understand. This may have been a factor in her choice of language after she was hauled into the police station in Berlin in 1920.

[Menarue]

Originally Posted by ChatNoir

What on earth do you mean? Dr. Derevenko was a Russian and spoke no German. Denying him access to the Ipatiev House was the guards' means of punishing the Empress for speaking in a foreign language in their presence.

Oh dear she must have been impolite. How awful of her. She must have been saying something naughty that she didn´t want him to hear. Or as he din´t speak Russian perhaps she was speaking English.