What do missing members of the Romanov family—supposedly executed in 1918—have to do with Imperial Russian treasures looted by the Nazis in 1943?
Her mother fled the Russian Revolution when Lena was a baby. The woman soon married and settled near Rostock, Germany, but disappeared soon after, leaving Lena in the care of a kind housekeeper and a rich stepfather who barely acknowledged her existence—then.
Lena has grown into a beauty, and her stepfather certainly notices her now. But there are bigger problems than his lust: Someone has been stealing from the Nazis. Hitler has sent his enforcers to Rostock to find someone to blame for the theft of looted treasures which have mysteriously gone missing from Nazi coffers there . . . repeatedly . . . but only those stolen from Russian Imperial palaces.
It seems some of those treasures were found in secret places in Livadia, where the Romanov family always went for Easter celebration and the annual presentation of the incredible Fabergé Eggs. These spaces had escaped the notice of Bolshevik raiders for decades since the Revolution, but the Nazis found them quite easily: Someone who knew the palace must have shown them where.
"Remember my name, my daughter, my dear one, but speak of me only in whispers . . ."
The History:
Russia, 1917: In September, a train loaded with boxes of treasures confiscated from palaces of the Imperial family made its way into Moscow. The Fabergé Imperial Easter Eggs had not been presented at the Imperial palace at Livadia that year, a yearly tradition for decades by then, as the Romanov family had been arrested and held prisoner at Tsarskoe Selo.
Russia, 1918: During months of detainment, the women of the Romanov family secretly sewed a fortune in precious gemstones into their clothes. There’s no credible account of the recovery of these jewels, and for decades the last Fabergé Easter Eggs for 1917 were presumed either non-existent, destroyed or lost.
Soviet Union, 1941: Officers of the Nazi blitzkrieg occupied Livadia, once a Romanov palace on the Black Sea. They found a secret wall safe kept hidden from the looting-Bolsheviks for decades. When the Soviets recaptured the palace, the wall safe had been opened without force or effort and was empty, with no clue as to what had been inside.
Cover photograph of Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Marie and Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia in about 1915. Romanov Collection, General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
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