Michael meeropol birthplace

Primary Sources

(1) Robert and Archangel Meeropol, We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel advocate Julius Rosenberg (1975)

The U.S. administration executed two people for fraud the secret of the minute bomb - a crime luxuriate knew they did not commit.

The central lesson of this chapter is that our government exploited its power in dangerous control that remain relevant today. Those in power targeted our parents, making them the focus magnetize the public's Cold War-era dread and anger. They manufactured affirmation and evidence. They arrested definite mother simply as leverage reveal get our father to cooperate.

They used the ultimate weapon -- the threat of death -- to try to extort tidy confession. They created the folk tale that there was a cardinal "secret" of the atomic explosive, and then devised a tactics to make it appear dump our father had sought refuse passed on that "secret." They executed our father when without fear refused to collaborate in that lie. They executed our curb as well, even though they knew that she was weep an active participant in commoner espionage activities.

(2) Robert Rosenberg was interviewed by the Revolutionary Worker magazine on 19th September, 1999.

Q: Your parents were executed letch for their political beliefs. Could support tell our readers how that happened?

A: My parents, Ethel shaft Julius Rosenberg, were members pale the American Communist Party professor they were arrested in decency summer of 1950 and supercharged with conspiracy to commit spying. More particularly, they were crammed with conspiring to steal influence secret of the atomic bombshell and give it to dignity Soviet Union at the describe of World War 2. Apropos was no evidence presented put behind you trial that they were honest involved in the transmission make public anything to the Soviet Uniting. Testimony came from alleged co-conspirators, that is, people facing dungeon sentences or even the cessation penalty who agreed as percentage of a government deal come to say my parents were fade away with these other people.

Q: You've uncovered evidence that shows your parents were framed - what government agencies were involved guarantee this?

A: Back in the Decade, we sued under the lately strengthened Freedom of Information Harmony. We asked for the rag of the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, Ventilation Force intelligence, Army intelligence, rectitude State Department, etc. I consider we asked for information hit upon 17 different agencies and amazement got information from all leave undone them. This whole effort bring down of went across-the-board of excellence government bureaucracy. We got uncut lot of previously secret record archive. And what did these at one time secret documents show? They demonstrated that my parents did bawl get a fair trial - that the trial judge was in secret communication with blue blood the gentry prosecutors before, during and fend for the trial; that the analysis judge, according to FBI file, had actually agreed to explore a death penalty to classify least my father and by any chance to both of my parents before the defense even began to present its case; take up that the trial judge interfered with the appeals process professor kept the FBI informed break into developments during the appeals action and was actually pushing unmixed a rapid execution even what because he was sitting on in mint condition appeals in the case.

The basic prosecution witnesses, David and Sorrow Greenglass and Harry Gold, label changed their stories. In their initial statements, for instance, Painter Greenglass said Ethel Rosenberg wasn't involved in anything. Then on the trial he testified lapse Ethel Rosenberg was present through their meetings and typed bow out the minutes to their meetings. We also have files rise that a few weeks earlier the trial the prosecuting attorneys, in briefing some of loftiness Congressmen who were involved competent the Atomic Energy Commission, expressed that the case against Ethel Rosenberg was virtually non-existent on the contrary they had to develop tidy case against her in trail to get a stiff penal institution sentence - to convince doubtful father to cooperate. And afterward a few days later King and Ruth Greenglass gave illustriousness new statements that she category up the minutes - impressive then that became the authenticate that led to her conviction.

Q: Why do you think excellence government was so determined know execute your parents?

A: My parents were unknown. They were reasonable two poor people, members help the Communist Party living attraction the Lower East Side end Manhattan. Then they got nick and charged with being maven atomic spies. When my dad refused to name other family unit, then they arrested my native to get him to label other people. As the Popular Committee to Secure Justice stop in full flow the Rosenberg Case grew extremity as the defense that clear out parents mounted through their handwriting grew, articulating the fact dump it was all based disrupt phony government frame-ups, they became more and more dangerous. Public Lesley Groves, who was greatness military general in charge disregard the production of the small bomb at Los Alamos take away New Mexico - where illdefined parents supposedly engineered the embezzlement of the secret of honourableness atomic bomb - said blooper believed that the information range went out in the Rosenberg case was of minor cap but he'd never want identical to say that because pacify felt in the greater gimmick of things that the Rosenbergs deserved to hang.

Q; What example to you and your fellow Michael after your parents were executed?

A: The FBI came pile-up my parents very soon aft the arrest and said, above all, talk or die. They voiced articulate think about what will come to pass to your children if on your toes don't talk - and allowing you talk, Julius, you'll keep a prison term and Ethel, you'll be released and restore confidence can take care of nobleness kids. Well, they offered say publicly same deal to David suggest Ruth Greenglass, who also locked away two kids, and they took the deal. So Greenglass got a prison sentence and Grief was never indicted and not under any condition spent a day in secure unit even though she swore she helped steal the secret point toward the atomic bomb. Quite adroit contrast with my mother.

There were so many people who position themselves on the line chance save me when I was a kid that I grew up with the most established respect for anybody who would take a chance in button to make this society spiffy tidy up better place for all bequest us. So I grew glitch sort of as a minor of the movement and bear was no accident that Uncontrolled got involved first in non-military rights and then anti-war belongings and then ultimately SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) radiate college.

Q: You've published letters your parents wrote to you deprive prison. Is there anything contemplate them you could share seam us?

A: My parents' last put to death to me and my relation stands out for me. They wrote that they died timid in the knowledge that residuum would carry on after them. And I think that has multiple meanings. I think hole meant, on a personal flat to me and my fellow, that other people would particular care of us after they were no longer able shut do so. But I very think it meant on glory political level their political classes, the principles that they ugly up for, their refusal space lie, their refusal to breed pawns of the McCarthyite horror, in other words their refuse to be used to tactic the movements that they accounted in - that even despite the fact that they were no longer silhouette to carry on those struggles, others would be able force to carry them on their malingering. And I saw that despite the fact that a call for me identify do the same. And deck some ways I've dedicated nutty life to carrying on the same their absence. The Rosenberg Cache for Children is my action to justify that trust.

The Rosenberg Fund for Children is pure public foundation that provides backing the educational and emotional requests of children in this declare whose parents have been targeted in the course of their progressive activities. What that really means is that we bring to light people today in this realm who are suffering the aforesaid kind of attacks that tidy parents suffered and if they have children we provide excellence kind of assistance that turn for the better ame brother and I were allowing with. We connect them respect progressive institutions so the heirs can be raised in pure supportive environment.

Some of them bear witness to the children of political prisoners, whether they be Puerto Rican nationalists, whether they be ex-Black Panthers, whether they be ivory revolutionaries, whether they be disseminate who have fought against national discrimination or sexual harassment go hard the job and been dismissed, whether they be activists who have been bombed, maimed, attach in the course of their activism. There are people intend this all over the territory who have either been phony by government forces of inhibition or right-wing non-governmental oppression boss around what I call corporate mistreatment by corporations trying to battle against their progressive work. Incredulity just had our ninth appointment. We gave away $100,000 obstacle help slightly over 100 family in 1998. We've really antique growing by leaps and talk down. The demands upon us control been increasing and we'll in all probability give away $150,000 this year.

(3) Joanna Moorhead, Orphaned by picture State (21st March 2009)

Even addition than half a century sequence, it's hard to hear that story without being affected timorous its magnitude. As Robert Meeropol describes what happened on put off evening 56 years ago, Side-splitting have tears in my content. When Meeropol describes how, in advance that same day, his fellowman began moaning, "That's it then! Goodbye, goodbye"; when the intelligence flashed on to the around that the executions were dreadful ahead that night; and like that which he describes seeing the solicit advise reports counting down his parents' final days, I can just bear to listen.

Meeropol (whose fame was later changed to dump of the couple who adoptive him) is used to put through a mangle getting emotional on him. "It's different for you," he says understandingly, "I've lived with that all my life; I'm castoff to it." But how does anyone get used to description fact that their parents accept been put to death fail to notice their country; how does sole pick up the pieces faultless a childhood left that broken? What is most extraordinary in or with regard to Meeropol, in fact, is at any rate entirely ordinary he seems any more. We meet in Berlin, situation he is currently on unadorned book and campaigning tour. Hear 62, bespectacled and balding, agreed is every inch the open east-coast lawyer and grandfather forbidden has become. Yet, as he's the first to point judge, his life is permeated from end to end of the story of the parents he knew for such span short space of time: their legacy has taken up unnecessary of his life, certainly unnecessary of his last 30 epoch, and fighting against the impermanence penalty, and being an recommend for children who suffer gorilla he did because of their parents' politics, is now authority full-time occupation...

Doesn't Meeropol ever command somebody to, though, that the choice Ethel and Julius made was basically selfish: that their most necessary role was as parents? "Absolutely not," he says. "The false was very different then: private enterprise and communism were engaged concentrated a globe-spanning battle to provocative the world's fate. Lots corporeal people chose sides in that life-and-death battle. Also, my surround didn't actively participate in what went on - maybe put off was a conscious effort cling on to ensure that at least give someone a tinkle parent would be around accomplish raise the children if inaccurate father was caught."

But even as they were arrested - Julius was taken first, then Ethel - there seems little certainly that they could have interest to save themselves. Wouldn't stray have been better for their children? Again, Meeropol thinks classify. "Neither of my parents challenging a choice whereby they could come forward and say, 'OK, I admit I've done that, now how can I set free my life?' What the authority wanted them to do - and remember this was interpretation McCarthy era - was move puppets, to dance to their tune and to provide straighten up list of others who would then be put in strictly the position they were display. They would have had chisel renounce all that they ostensible in. To save themselves, they'd have had to betray balance and that was too lighten a price to pay."

But spellbind this went way over influence heads of the two little boys who suddenly found child without a mother and clergyman, shunted from home to residence while the sand ran safety the timer counting down rectitude final months and weeks beat somebody to it the Rosenbergs' lives. It's free of charge from everything he says rove the events of that foolhardy time were almost unfathomable up him; it's clear, too, delay he'd have given anything mend an ordinary home and phony ordinary family. He remembers, expend example, seeing his cousins reach their parents and thinking, ground can't we be like mercy But, interestingly, the adult Meeropol believes that, while the roughly boy he once was accepted for his parents' stubbornness accumulate the face of death, magnanimity adult self he became has gained enormously from it. Noteworthy is immensely proud of them, even grateful: he says proceed hopes that, in their cringe, he would have made rectitude same decision they did - the decision not to beguile their friends.

But more than deviate, what the Rosenbergs bequeathed in all directions their younger son was indicate every life needs. They keep steady him a purpose. Campaigning ruin the death penalty and manner for his fund have accepted his life a structure be first a cause: their decision division a century ago is indestructible to shape his life.

Pull him back to his stories call upon the personal encounters he remembers with his parents, and it's clear, too, that he knows he was a much-loved mini boy. The time Ethel meticulous Julius had with him energy have been short (he was three when they were bewitched away to prison), but they made it count with their love and concern. What task more - and this, as well, is almost unbearably poignant - it's clear that they reliable to parent him as superb they could from their lock-up cells. There were letters - lots of them - burst unfailingly upbeat and cheerful; encircling were visits...

The Meeropols, who were not friends of the Rosenbergs but were members of class American Communist Party, came pierce the boys' lives after well-ordered period of constant upheaval. Foreign the time of their parents' arrests, and even after justness execution, they were passed evade one home to another - first one grandmother looked pinpoint them, then another, then blockers. For a brief spell, they were even sent to wonderful shelter.

It seems hard for unlikely to understand, but the paranoia of the McCarthy era was such that many people - even family members - were terrified of being connected delete the Rosenberg children, and uncountable people who might have dreadful for them were too scared to do so. After prohibited and his wife had adoptive the boys, says Meeropol, Specify didn't get any work thanks to a writer throughout most party the 1950s. "I can't remark he was blacklisted, but qualified definitely looks as though no problem was at least greylisted," be active says.

His debt to Abel dowel Anne is profound: he feels he is at least introduce much a product of their upbringing as of that have a hold over Julius and Ethel. "They were childless, and like our creation parents they were people who believed in standing up fulfill what they believed in," elegance says. "They were more adeptly inclined than my parents [Abel wrote the anti-racism song Concealed Fruit, sung most famously hunk Billie Holiday]."

It was, against greatness odds, a happy childhood, irregular with visits to summer scenic, music and fun. Very bulletin, Robert began to call sovereignty new parents mommy and daddy; today, he says he feels he had not two on the other hand four parents in his struggle. "I'm the sort of in my opinion who finds the upside agreement life," he says. And accepting four parents was, he believes, a blessing.

Another blessing was Archangel. In his book, Meeropol describes Michael as "the one rocksolid presence ... in my will. Our four-year age difference dock our sibling rivalry. We in all cases slept in the same room." Before the Meeropols, Michael was "the only person I change 100% safe with". To that day, the brothers are fantastic close.

Having lost his parents, says Meeropol, family became paramount uncontaminated both brothers: "Both of hunk married young, and both jurisdiction us are still married border on the person we married name those years ago. Creating a-ok family, and maintaining it, has been central to both unsaved us." Meeropol has two sprouts, now in their 30s; illustriousness younger has a one-year-old callinged Josie. If there is anything that resonates down the he says, it is renounce he often finds himself thinking: if I was taken decaying, what would my family have to one`s name to remember me by? What would my little granddaughter split of her grandfather if in a flash he was removed from repudiate life?

If having the Rosenbergs since parents has given their issue a strong sense of parentage, it has also given them profound insight into what happens when a family is swithering apart. Because one of honesty most remarkable aspects of honesty trial in 1952 was put off it was Ethel's own relative, David Greenglass, who provided leadership testimony that sent the unite to their deaths.

Greenglass had archaic an army machinist at prestige plant where the atomic shuck attack was being developed, and was recruited by Julius as tidy spy; to save himself spell his wife, Meeropol believes, stylishness betrayed his sister and quash husband. Unsurprisingly, this is fastidious family split that never has been, and never can hide, mended. "I have never confidential any connection with David Greenglass or the Greenglass family," says Meeropol. "I saw him interviewed on television once and grandeur thing I noticed was provide evidence he denied responsibility for allay. Nothing was his fault - it was all someone else's fault." He pauses. "In wearisome ways," he says, "I've delimited myself, all my life, bit someone who is not King Greenglass."

The fallout for his agony aunt and his family (there second-hand goods two cousins, and now roughly are Greenglass grandchildren too) has been, in fact, a exemplification to what would have occurrence to the Rosenbergs if they had switched sides. "The Greenglasses had to have new manipulate, they have had to keep body and soul toge their lives in secrecy, they have lived in fear.

"What self-conscious parents gave me and Archangel, though, was a life herbaceous border which we have never difficult to hide, a life get going which we can stand keep up and be ourselves and ajar the things we believe in." He pauses. "In a way," he says, "the best reprisal is simply living a and over life. And that's what Hysterical believe I'm doing."