MYSTERY OF A PRINCESS

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 226, 24 September 1927, Page 36

MYSTERY OF A PRINCESS

EX-CZAR'S DAUGHTER. REPORTED LIVING IN BAVARIA GRAND DUCHESS ANASTASIA. ESCAPES EKATERINENBURG MASSACRE. (Copyright by the "Auckland Star" and the N.A.N.A.)

NEW YORK, August 30. Sheltered by the Duke of Leuchtenberg in his castle of Seeon, near Obing, Germany, is a young woman whose identity presents modern history with a problem as baffling and enigmatic as The Man in the Iron Mask. She has maintained, since first she came to public attention, that she is Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna, daughter of the dead Czar Nicholas of Russia, and sole survivor of the shambles at Ekaterinenburg, in Siberia, where on July 17, 1918, her father, her mother, her brother and her sisters were shot and bayonetted by a revolutionary executionary squad. Obviouely if this "Frau von Tchaikovsky,'—as she is now known—is Anastasia Nicholaevna, Grand Duchess of Russia, her survival and experiences since are one of the most astounding and tragic adventures that ever befell human being. Competent witnesses, including royal relatives of the Grand Duchess Anastasia, say that Frau von Tchaikovsky is an imposter. Others that she is a madwoman. Others that she may be the Grand Duchess, but that they cannot be sure. Some hive identified her as the Grand Duchess, only to reverse themselves later. Newspaper correspondents have sought to establish the truth or falsity of her claims always to come up against the blank wall of no direct proof.

Rescued From Canal. So far as the public knows the story of the mystery woman of Seeon starts on February 17, 1920, when the Berlin police rescued her from, the Landwehr Canal into which she had thrown herself. She was taken to a charity hospital. She refused steadfastly to reveal her identity. After two months of silence the hospital authorities had her committed to the Daldorf Asylum, Berlin's institution for the insane. One night a nurse who had been especially kind and tactful was approached by the mysterious patient. In her hand was an old copy of a German illustrated magazine containing a picture of the Czar's family. The I patient asked the nurse if she eaw anything curious in the picture. The nurse did not. "Fraulein Unknown" then pointed to one of the Czar's daughters in the group and asked if she observed anything striking about it. After looking at the picture for some moments, the nurse was struck with the resemblance between the patient and the Czar's daughter. Several hours later in a state of violent excitement she told the nurse the story of the Russian Imperial family's execution in detail.

Ex-Czar's Daughter. Later a Frau Peutert, a patient at the asylum, declared the unknown fraulein to be a Grand Duchess. On leaving the asylum in 1922, Frau spread the news among the Russian emigres of Berlin that "Fraulein Unknown" was the Grand Duchess. They urged her to leave the asylum and take shelter with a Russian family. The hospital authorities agreed to this; they had never considered her insane. Frau Von Tchaikovsky's Story. From the spring of 1922 until late in 1924, still weak and ill, the putative Anastasia lived with Russian refugees. Some sought to establish her identity. Others squabbled for the prestige of exhibiting her. Her story of her experiences as evolved bit by bit was as follows:—

On the night of the Ekaterinenburg execution Anastasia, the Czar and Czarina, the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiaua, and Marie, and the Czarevitch, together with Dr. Eugene Botkin, personal physician to the Imperial Family, were awakened and ordered into a single room of the house, where they were held prisoners of the Bolsheviks. The leader of the Bolshevik firing-squad shot her father through the head with a revolver. Immediately the other Bolsheviks began shooting the prisoners. She fainted, and remembered nothing more until she came to consciousness some days later in a cart filled with straw. With her were two young men, one in the uniform of a Red Guard, and two women. The Red Guard, a Pole, said his name was Tchaikovsky. He told her that he had been taken by the Bolsheviks from his small farm near the city and forced to enter the Red service. He said that after the shooting he had discovered she was still living, and he had thrown a bundle of rags over her to prevent her from being carried off with the bodies of the dead. He told her that the cremation and- burial squad of Bolsheviks had been in a great' hurry to get its work done, because the White Russians were advancing on the city. They had not noticed the missing Grand Duchess under the rags. He had then hastily gathered together his mother, his brother and sister, and taking Anastasia, started for the Rumanian border.

Between Ekaterinenburg and Rumania, 2000 miles through . hositle country, Anastasia lay in the' cart, critically ill from her wounds.; Of the first few months in Rumania she remembered nothing except that she still suffered from terrible pains from her head wounds. She did not know how long she stayed there. Later, in Bucharest, while at a house of a relative of Tchaikovsky she fell ill with brain fever. No doctor attended her; her rescuers packed her head in snow. During this time she married Tchaikovsky and had a child by him. Soon afterwards her husband was killed in a street fight, by Bolsheviks, she believes. Her health improving, she determined to go to Germany to seek her godmother, the Princess Irene of Prussia. Her child was placed in an orphan asylum outside of Bucharest.

In Hospital Again. While this story gained circulation, and Russian refugees in Berlin debated its truth or falsity, Frau yon Tchaikovsky became dangerously ill. She was taken to a' charity hospital, one of her arms attainted with a tubercular infection. Some time later she was discharged, improved in health but uncured. She went to live with Frau Peutert in a Berlin garret. In December, 1926, Frau von Tchaikovsky was visited in turn by the Grand' Duchess Olga, sister of the Czar, Pierre Gilliard, who had been the Grand Duchess Anastasia's tutor, and Mine. Gilliard, who had been Anastasia-'s nurse. The Grand Duchess Olga never officially acknowledged the sick girl, but was so impressed by intimate details of the life of the Imperial family related by Frau von Tchaikovsky, she treated

her with kindliness and solicitude explicable only by the assumption that rhe believed the girl her brother's daughter. The sick woman recognised Grand Duchess Olga and the Gilliards. Mme. Gilliard identified Frau von Tchaikovsky's feet, which are slightly deformed, as those of her former ward. The Grand Duchess Anastasia suffered from a similar deformity. Mme. Gilliard identified also several birth-marks corresponding to those of the Grand Duchess. M. Gilliard referred to Frau von Tchaikovsky as "Her Imperial Highness." For several months Grand Duchess Olga and M. Gilliard continued to show the greatest interest in Frau von Tchaikovsky's case. They corresponded with Frau von Rathleff. Then, in the winter of 1026, they stopped writing. They stated on several occasions that the sick girl was not the Grand Duchess Anastasia; but they never vouchsafed any evidence or reason for their changed opinion. As yet members of the Russian Imperial Family have made no official statement on the case. Some of them have expressed privately their belief that Frau von Tchaikovosky is the Grand Duchess Anastasia. It is known that the question of her recognition is still being discussed by them.

Mr. Gleb Botkin, an artist and writer, was commissioned by the North American Newspaper Alliance to go to Castle Seeon and see Frau von Tchaikovsky. As a boy he knew the Grand Duchess Anastasia and other members of the Russian Imperial Family, to which his father was medical adviser. He lived at Court and shared the exile in Siberia of the Imperial Family, and was one of the last to have seen the Grand Duchess before the execution of the Imperial Family in Ekaterinenburg in 1918. His father was killed with the Czar and Mr. Botkin escaped to the United States, which haa been his home ever since. Mr. Botkin went to Castle Seeon, where he met and talked with Frau von Tchoikovsky, and he became convinced that she is the Grand Duchess Anastasia.