Newspaper coverage on their execution day
Los Angeles Times
Read Anne Sebba’s biography, Ethel Rosenberg: A Cold War Tragedy (2021). Ethel came from modest Belarusian immigrants, leaving school at 16 to support her family during the Great Depression and singing only at fundraisers. In 1936 the lovely young soprano Ethel Greenglass (b1915) was invited to perform at an International Seamen’s Union benefit. She was a confident singer who’d performed at Carnegie Hall. But this time she succeeded only with the support of an 18-year-old engineering student, Julius Rosenberg (b1918).
Thereafter they were totally devoted. They married in 1939 in a Lower East Side synagogue, Julius being an electrical engineer and Ethel a union organiser. Both were Communist Party members. When Michael was born in 1943 and Robert in 1947, she became a loving mother and alented performer.
Ethel’s mother Tessie Greenglass, had favoured her son David Greenglass (b1922) and disapproved of daughter Ethel. After years of Tessie’s criticism, Ethel felt so insecure about her ability to mother her own sons that she started therapy, as explored in interviews with her therapist Dr Elizabeth Phillips. Phillips reported that despite the public vilification of their parents, the boys thrived due to Ethel’s good mothering. She was never a spy!
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In 2008 Michael and Robert Meeropol said that, given recent revelations by their parents' co-defendant engineer Morton Sobell, they saw Julius was involved in Soviet espionage. But there was no evidence that he participated in atomic bomb secrets! On their mother, there was nothing!
Thereafter they were totally devoted. They married in 1939 in a Lower East Side synagogue, Julius being an electrical engineer and Ethel a union organiser. Both were Communist Party members. When Michael was born in 1943 and Robert in 1947, she became a loving mother and alented performer.
Ethel’s mother Tessie Greenglass, had favoured her son David Greenglass (b1922) and disapproved of daughter Ethel. After years of Tessie’s criticism, Ethel felt so insecure about her ability to mother her own sons that she started therapy, as explored in interviews with her therapist Dr Elizabeth Phillips. Phillips reported that despite the public vilification of their parents, the boys thrived due to Ethel’s good mothering. She was never a spy!
The couple taken to court, Julius in handcuffs
Trial
When Ethel Rosenberg was at the Women’s Detention House in 1951, she’d sing in her soprano voice after-lights. Fellow prisoners recalled that Ethel was well treated, even by the guards. But in the trial Rosenberg’s character was analysed for “feminine flaws”. She was 3 years older than Julius, so contemporary American media demonised Ethel as the force behind Julius’ involvement with Soviet intelligence. Sebba documented how the prosecution manipulated the evidence against her and how she refused to testify against her beloved husband, not even to spare her own life.
Brother David had fewer qualms; he gave evidence that Ethel had typed the notes about nuclear weapons that Julius passed to the Soviets, sealing Ethel’s fate. The couple was executed as spies in June 1953. David, who spent only 10 years in gaol, later confessed to lying in court!
But in this powerful biography, Sebba was more interested in examining the political hysteria that burst over 1950s Cold War America, and at the roles anti-Semitism and sexism played. J Edgar Hoover wrote a memorandum to the Attorney General suggesting “proceeding against the wife might serve as a lever in the matter”. Even Pres. Eisenhower, reluctant to have women executed, called her the spy ring leader! If Rosenberg’s sentence were to be commuted, Eisenhower feared the Soviets would simply recruit their spies from among women. The cowardly politicians were responding mainly to the noisy crowds! As unease at the sentence grew in the US and elsewhere, even anti-capital punishment Eleanor Roosevelt remained silent.
Even the electrocution at Sing Sing was gross; they had to give Ethel 5 jolts before the killing was done.
From Aug 1950, sons Robert and Michael lived with maternal grandmother, Tessie Greenglass. She quickly placed them in the Hebrew Children's Home. Paternal grandmother Sophie Rosenberg soon removed them from the children's home, so at least the boys could visit their parents in Sing Sing. After a year with Sophie, the boys were finally adopted by songwriter-poet Abel Meeropol and wife Anne and became Meeropols themselves.
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Brother David had fewer qualms; he gave evidence that Ethel had typed the notes about nuclear weapons that Julius passed to the Soviets, sealing Ethel’s fate. The couple was executed as spies in June 1953. David, who spent only 10 years in gaol, later confessed to lying in court!
But in this powerful biography, Sebba was more interested in examining the political hysteria that burst over 1950s Cold War America, and at the roles anti-Semitism and sexism played. J Edgar Hoover wrote a memorandum to the Attorney General suggesting “proceeding against the wife might serve as a lever in the matter”. Even Pres. Eisenhower, reluctant to have women executed, called her the spy ring leader! If Rosenberg’s sentence were to be commuted, Eisenhower feared the Soviets would simply recruit their spies from among women. The cowardly politicians were responding mainly to the noisy crowds! As unease at the sentence grew in the US and elsewhere, even anti-capital punishment Eleanor Roosevelt remained silent.
Even the electrocution at Sing Sing was gross; they had to give Ethel 5 jolts before the killing was done.
From Aug 1950, sons Robert and Michael lived with maternal grandmother, Tessie Greenglass. She quickly placed them in the Hebrew Children's Home. Paternal grandmother Sophie Rosenberg soon removed them from the children's home, so at least the boys could visit their parents in Sing Sing. After a year with Sophie, the boys were finally adopted by songwriter-poet Abel Meeropol and wife Anne and became Meeropols themselves.
Michael (born 1943) and Robert (born 1947)
when their were gaoled in 1951
What happened after the couple was executed?
Ethel’s brother David Greenglass admitted to a Grand Jury to passing nuclear secrets to Julius Rosenberg from Los Alamos laboratory, New Mexico. And he admitted to lying to save his wife Ruth and himself; both of them betrayed Ethel in court. Thus Sebba’s book couldn’t be published until after the release of David’s testimony, following his 2014 death.
Deciphered Soviet cables clarified that Julius Rosenberg was an agent, as Sebba acknowledged. And Sebba agreed that Ethel, at worst, knew something of what her husband was doing and did not report him. Mostly the biography was empathetic. Ethel was poor and drab, although Sebba saw that she was also special: keen for self-improvement and dignity.
Note the goodness of Anne and Abel Meeropol who adopted the Rosenbergs’ sons; despite Ethel and Julius’ executions, the Meeropols helped the boys grow into sane, educated men. Nonetheless I Helen could not imagine living in a nation that murdered its own politically- or religiously-committed citizens. It all happened with the unthinkable haste that often attended moments of great political and moral peril.
Knowing their parents were executed for conspiracy to pass atomic bomb secrets to Soviet Union, the brothers hoped FBI and CIA documents could expose their parents' innocence. So they sued under the Freedom of Information Act, getting 300,000 secret documents from the 1950s released. From 1974-8, they worked actively with the National Committee to reopen the Rosenberg Case and the Fund for Open Information and Accountability, and published a book.
Ethel’s brother David Greenglass admitted to a Grand Jury to passing nuclear secrets to Julius Rosenberg from Los Alamos laboratory, New Mexico. And he admitted to lying to save his wife Ruth and himself; both of them betrayed Ethel in court. Thus Sebba’s book couldn’t be published until after the release of David’s testimony, following his 2014 death.
Deciphered Soviet cables clarified that Julius Rosenberg was an agent, as Sebba acknowledged. And Sebba agreed that Ethel, at worst, knew something of what her husband was doing and did not report him. Mostly the biography was empathetic. Ethel was poor and drab, although Sebba saw that she was also special: keen for self-improvement and dignity.
Note the goodness of Anne and Abel Meeropol who adopted the Rosenbergs’ sons; despite Ethel and Julius’ executions, the Meeropols helped the boys grow into sane, educated men. Nonetheless I Helen could not imagine living in a nation that murdered its own politically- or religiously-committed citizens. It all happened with the unthinkable haste that often attended moments of great political and moral peril.
Knowing their parents were executed for conspiracy to pass atomic bomb secrets to Soviet Union, the brothers hoped FBI and CIA documents could expose their parents' innocence. So they sued under the Freedom of Information Act, getting 300,000 secret documents from the 1950s released. From 1974-8, they worked actively with the National Committee to reopen the Rosenberg Case and the Fund for Open Information and Accountability, and published a book.
Ethel's brother, David Greenglass
taken into court, 1951