The Ottawa Journal from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • Page 15

Advertising Supplement awi)lhi8eir (fin's) Death Waltz, on Friday, Feb. 18 at 8 p.m., is the first program in Fall of Eagles, a 13-part series that chronicles the rule and ultimate decline of the Hohenzolterns, the Hapsburgs and the Romanovs, families that dominated the three great empires of Germany, Austria and Russia at the turn of the century. The series concentrates on the people involved, not just the history they were making. Here, we look at one of the most controversial chapters from that period, the mystery of Anna Anderson, who claims to be the Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, last of the Romanov rulers. Hand.Uitinq tests ronducted -by the Institute in Germany in -1927 con- uutru inut 'e 3 'ir i 1 1 'y ivus i.ientical to Anastasia's.

In 1964, Minna Becker, a Gorma:) handwriting expert, noted 137 identical characteristics. IVio two people, 13. V.VO ester lay lAeniim 9 in a (jirl'of about 20 oft the hendler budge into the L.mdwehr Cadi tho intention of raking her own life She was saved lv a Roll, sergeant and admitted to (hospital) She -spent the next two yrvi'S iin it observation a mental hospital. ha'dty speaV inij to anyone. Do tois noted t'it in ht-i sleep she spo with a good accent Interest in the myster io: woman was sparked when a patient released from the hospital, who hail seen members of the Royal family, told emigres in Berl.n of the woman's resume lanre to the Grand Duchess Tatania.

Baron Arthur von KJeist. a former police official in Russian Poland, visited her regularly and began to gam her confidence. Eventually she was released into the rare of his family. Struck by gunfire One day she told him in cont.den: that she was in fact the Grand Duchess Anastas a Hi story was that she had hidden behind' one of 'er sisters dilring the massacre, ha been struck I gunfire and lost consciousness A soldier named Alexander Trhaiiow sky had rescued her and she travelled byroad with (lis family to Rourrjniu. then made her own way to Berlin.

The woman's claims, trumpeted by von KHeist and others who came to stare at her, caused a -st ir among Europe's aristocrats. By the ripples readied the Royal Danish Court at Copenhagen where the Tsar's mother. Dowager Empress Marie, 'and the Grand Duchess Olga. his sistc. were in exile.

That sa year the Grand Duchess Otga made the trip to Berlin to see the woman who tainted to fe her neice. Mo one knows for sure what occurred during that meeting, but it was the sta't of an acir onions dis pute. epic libnaton. dirty politics, and a smeai. c.i''pagn to dis.

edit Anna An ler son In the G'an Duchess memo.rs. published afte' he' death iii Cook-wile. Ont.ino. in I960, she dei tared that the claimant was not her niece. Authors Win gold and Summers, however.

obtained lot trents which indicate that some doubt lingered in her mmd. In a tetter to the Danish envoy in Ber-ln following her visit, she wiote "My feeling is that she is not the one she believes but one can't say she is not as a fart -as there are still many strange and inexplicable facts not cleared up." By Manuel Escott She is 77. a tiny figure with dyed aubnm-'fcnde hair, surfcHinded by her pet in a white townhduse in Charlottesville. Vir ginia. She is now Mrs.

John Manahan. wife pf a retired history professor, but fcfr five decades the world knew her better as Anna Anderson, the subject of 3 doen hooks, a play and a hit movie starting Ingnd Berg man. I As Anna Anderson, she was also the foe us of a bitter feud between some of Europe's most prominent aristocrats. Her notoriety was assured when she claimed to be Grand Duchess youngest of Tsar Nicholas ft wbo was executed by the Communists at Ekaterinburg in the Ufa's in late July 1913. The widely-accepted version of events in the small town at that time was that the Tsar's family the Tsarina, Alexei the Tsare--ntf1.

and (our Grand Duchesses Olga. Maria, Tatania and Anastasia-were massacred in the ground floor room of the Ipatiev House. But new evidence uncovered by British television journalists Tom Mangold and Anthony Summers has turned this version on its Their theory, based on that evidence, is that while the Tsar probably was executed near Ekaterinburg, the rest of the family was moved to Perm, about 200 miles northwest of- the town, in the tac? of the advancing anti-communist troops. Ther4 is also evidence to suggest that, the Grand Duchess Anastasia escaped from custody there. In their new book.

The File on the Tsar. and Summers record a conversation between Dr. Gurr.her Bock, German vice consul in Leningrad, and a Communist official that took place in 1927. Bock revealed in 1964 that the official told him one of the Romanov women went missing. When the diplomat asked if it was Anastasia, the official merely shrugged and turned away.

The widow of Major Stephen Alley, a senior British intelligence officer operating in Russia during the civil the authors her husband always knew one of the family was saved. Bodies never found As far as the rest of the world was con cerned. the Romanovs' disappeared off the face of the earth after July 1918. Their bodies were neve found. The Anna Anderson story begins with a terse Berlin police bulletin dated February tent similarity.

The curious tfjing aboijt. the Anastasia. atair is thtit the woman nyyer showed nvucti interest in pressing her claim, her cause, was taken up by others, some foi spurious -re lsons no doubt in my mind that the woman not Anastasia." savs T.hon Kuli-fovsky. a son of the Grand Duchess Olga. who still I ves in Cooksviile.

"My mother was certain, too. Mv other went to set? her in the early 1920s. The woman could not even speak Russian. th.s stuff about Anastasia and the rest-of the 'an-ily being alive is ahso'ure nonsense." It the Grand Duchess Ola.i officially --pudiated the the Tsar's cousin. Giauo Duke Andrei, took up an extreme position on the other side.

A trained And1 ei invest inaged Anderson's clam, more thoroughly than any other Romanov. "Iq the best of my conscience, I must a1 knoA leuite that Anastasia 1 chaikowskv is none other than my niei tie wrote to the Griivi Duchess 0'ga 1028. "I recogniod her at onit', and fu-thcr ohs-rvatton. only confirmed my first, impu-ss. on Tests backed her claim Over the years.

Anna An. underwent lot ns of te sts to establish Ivi finnc-rpi intinct. tiandwr itin. anthro-polrgical. A fcvnudahie body of evidence to b.K'k hei cla-m eme'ged fiim these tests.

Both feet of the claimant have a malformation of the pints and the root of the big toe. a cond tion known as hallux valgus Anastasia also had this condition and. as with the claimant, the ciefoimity was more pronounce I on. the right toot. Anastasia had a' mark on her right shoulder where a mole had btren removed so that site could weai a ball gown.

Anna Anderson has such a mai k. "I know perfectly well who-1 am," she would snap at lawyers and "I don't need to prove in any cou't of law." The-Jong leyal battle conducted by Anna. Anderson's allies ended in the West German Federal supreme, cour-t in 1970. It upheld a Hambwig comt decision that the woman had produ ed insufficient evidence to back her ctaeiThc ctVOrt. how-ever.

de-. striln1 tht? venitct as unsutisfactoiy. The claimant's identity, it aid. hacf nedlm lieen established nor And that's where- the case stands today, still wrapped in uhcci tainty and my'stery. Anna Manahan remains enigmat'ic about the whole af'air.

During the 19o0s. she told Prince Fiedeiick of Saxe Altentnirg "Events in Ekaterinburg were ctuite differ eht from wlvit they siy. But I say that, they think I'm Dining a seven-hour conversnt ion with Mang ild and Sunimers. she gave away very little although they record one myster rocis lemaik she madtf' "There was no massacred there but I cannot tell the rtst." TVOntario is produced each week by the Ontario Educational Comm..