What happened to the Romonov family?

C.                            Source D is not necessarily reliable just because it is an eyewitness account. Source D explains the position of the Romonov family in the room. Then Pavel Medvedev says he was told to go outside and check no one herd the shots and when he came back all of the Romonov family were dead. Source E is Medvedevs wife talking to investigators after her husbands’ death. She said that her husband fired shots at the family and he also told a guard he has put a few bullets in the Tsar. This showed everyone he was guilty and lied in his eyewitness account.  Source D is not really reliable and Source E is more likely to be true. I think this because the White army was torturing Medvedev when he gave his account so he probably lied to save himself whereas Source E was after his death and was being told by his wife so there was no need for her to lie.

D.                           Source F is not useful on its own because it is just a photo of the room where the Romonovs were killed. Some of the plaster has fallen of the walls but this may because of damp rather than just the bullets hitting it. Source G is more of a help than Source F but it is still not very useful because it is just a painting of some soldiers facing the family and it is from an angle where not everyone can be seen. As he didn’t know the exact position of everyone in the room he used his imagination. Source H is the most useful because Sokolovs diagram show the position on the Romonov’s and the guards in the room. He got the proof for the diagram from witnesses he interviewed instead of using his imagination like Source H. Source F is more useful when it is with source H because the parts of plaster that have come away from the wall can back up the diagram and also show the angles people were shot at. Source H is the most useful because it was drawn from people’s accounts. Source F is quite useful when with source H because it backs it up. Source G is not useful at all as the painter could have just made it up from his imagination.

E.                       Source E is a message from the district soviet to the Bolsheviks in Petrograd, it was a few days after the Tsar was shot. It says Ekaterinburg was threatened by the danger of the counter-revolutionaries so the Bolsheviks decided to kill the Tsar and send his wife and son to a secure place. This source is not surprising and the Bolsheviks killed the Tsar to stop the White army taking power, however this proves who was killed and what happened to everyone else. This source agrees with Sources A, B, C, D and E because they all agree that the Tsar was shot. It also agrees with source A in another part because that says the Empress and their son were not shot. Source B also partly agrees as it says the remaining members of the family were sent off on a train. Source C and D disagree with Source I as they say the entire family was killed at Ipatiev house, they both say the bodies were taken to a lorry but Source C goes on to say they were taken to the Four Brothers mine and burnt.

F.                      Source A says that all the family had been shot but they had not all been killed in the house. Source A agrees with Source B as it also says the family was shot. Source A and Source B agree with Source J to a point as they all say all of the Romonov the family was killed. Source C agrees with source D as they both say the corpses were taken out to a lorry but Source C goes on to disagree and say that the bodies were taken to a mine and burned whereas Source J says the bodies were taken to a mine to be blown up but when the mine didn’t collapse the bodies ended up being swamped in a bog and were buried there. These Sources also agree with J as it says the bodies were taken to a mine. Source E does not agree or disagree with Source J as it doesn’t say what happened to the family after they were killed. This is the same in Sourced F, G and H because they are just pictures of the basement and the positions of people in the room. Source I disagrees with Source J because it says that the Tsars son and wife had been sent of to a secure place but in Source J it says DNA proves that the Tsars wife and son were buried in a shallow pit near Ekatering. Source J most disagrees with Source I and because they both have different ideas about what happened to the family after the murders. Source j most agrees with Source C as they both say the family was taken to the mine after being shot.