An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I never knew that the Rosenberg children were basically forced to assume a different last name so they wouldn't be persecuted by children and adults throughout their lives. Instead of understandably seeking revenge against those that did wrong by his parents (and our democracy), Robert Meeropol has adopted a philosophy of the highest order, to create something constructive out of something terribly heinous. His argument against the death penalty in Chapter 9 is so eloquently convincing that it should be read by every citizen of the free world. I don't believe this to be an understatement. If you read this review, don't just sit there... get the book and read that chapter!!

The author also describes his support of Mumia Abu Jamal and how the Fraternal Order of Police stance for execution is more vengeance than truth-oriented. It's a controversial stance, and he doesn't belabor the point.

On top of it all, he even suggests that he isn't quite convinced that his father wasn't guilty of something, just that there was no evidence to support the government's case against him, and even moreso with his mother. It seems that had the Rosenbergs admitted some guilt, their lives would be spared, Because they refused to lie, they chose death instead. Turns out they were brave, and their executioners cowards. Not a great moment for the USA.

Written simply and with a voice free of self righteousness, Meeropol suggests the proper way our species should think, without moral relativism, and without the hysterics of today's political talking heads. This book makes places like Fox News obsolete.

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: I never knew that the Rosenberg children were basically forced to assume a different last name so they wouldn't be persecuted by children and adults throughout their lives. Instead of understandably seeking revenge against those that did wrong by his parents (and our democracy), Robert Meeropol has adopted a philosophy of the highest order, to create something constructive out of something terribly heinous. His argument against the death penalty in Chapter 9 is so eloquently convincing that it should be read by every citizen of the free world. I don't believe this to be an understatement. If you read this review, don't just sit there... get the book and read that chapter!!

The author also describes his support of Mumia Abu Jamal and how the Fraternal Order of Police stance for execution is more vengeance than truth-oriented. It's a controversial stance, and he doesn't belabor the point.

On top of it all, he even suggests that he isn't quite convinced that his father wasn't guilty of something, just that there was no evidence to support the government's case against him, and even moreso with his mother. It seems that had the Rosenbergs admitted some guilt, their lives would be spared, Because they refused to lie, they chose death instead. Turns out they were brave, and their executioners cowards. Not a great moment for the USA.

Written simply and with a voice free of self righteousness, Meeropol suggests the proper way our species should think, without moral relativism, and without the hysterics of today's political talking heads. This book makes places like Fox News obsolete.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Job
Review: Robert Meeropol manages to write a book about what must be an intensely painful subject for him -- his parents' execution -- with few traces of bitterness or rancor. He also deals honestly with the anger he does have, most of which is reserved for his uncle, David Greenglass. His approach to the question of their guilt or innocence is remarkably evenhanded, which makes the book all the more credible. Although he and his brother have lived their lives in the shadow of their parents' executions, both seem to have carved out productive, happy lives for themselves, which gives a glimmer of hope to this tragic story, well told.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Deeply Moving
Review: Robert Meeropol's memoir of life as one of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg's two sons, with its sardonic title echoing James Agee's novel "A Death in the Family" (although strictly speaking it's incomplete, since Meeropol had *two* executions in his family), is a powerful and moving account of growing up under the shadow of the legalized murder of both his parents by the United States government.

Having a parent in prison is not easy for a child. Having a parent executed is even worse. But having had *both* your parents executed for crimes they almost certainly did not commit, and having them become for a time the most vilified couple in America is a huge psychic burden, one which Meeropol repressed for a long time. In many ways, as he points out, he was fortunate -- he was adopted by a loving couple who raised both him and his older brother well. He received a good education, married and began a career and a family. But underneath it all was a secret he told to almost no one until he was in late twenties: that his parents had been sent to the electric chair for conspiracy to commit espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Not all of Meeropol's book is about the Rosenberg Case. He has had an interesting life on his own merits, and much of it makes for engrossing reading. If I have any reservations at all about the book it's because, maybe due to his being dyslexic, possibly because he's worked with children for many years, Meeropol's prose style is a little simplistic. To put it mildly. He uses commas so sparingly that I began to suspect he'd read way too much Hemingway. An average paragraph will read: CLAUSE COMMA CLAUSE FULLSTOP CLAUSE COMMA CLAUSE FULL STOP CLAUSE COMMA CLAUSE FULL STOP. I'm not saying that he should have necessarily imitated the later Henry James, but the unintentionally faux-Hemingway prose style does get a little monotonous at times.

The most gripping part of the book for me was Meeropol's growing realization that, while his parents were almost certainly not guilty of the charges for which they were executed, he was forced "to accept the possibility that my father had participated in an illegal and covert effort to help the Soviet Union defeat the Nazis" by supplying them with technical military information not related to the atomic bomb. Reading his son's account of how he came to grips with the fact that Julius Rosenberg allowed his devotion to the Communist ideology to enable him to give military secrets to the Russians (who, it should be pointed out, were our allies at the time) in spite of the disaster that it brought to his family, you are impressed with Robert Meeropol's desire to find out the truth about his parents, no matter what it might be.

Meeropol makes a strong case that, not only was his father not guilty of providing the Russians with the secret of the atomic bomb, he was executed along with his wife as the result of a criminal conspiracy between the attorney general of the United States and a Supreme Court Justice, who worked together to obstruct justice with the intent of placing them in the electric chair. Further, it is quite possible that Ethel Rosenberg may have been completely innocent of any wrongdoing at all. Meeropol's parents, he writes, "were killed not for any crime they may have committed, but because they were Communists who would not cooperate with the FBI."

I can't recommend this book too highly. It depicts one of the most important and tragic stories in American history as seen through the eyes of one of its victims who refused to be victimized. Today Meeropol is a staunch opponent of the death penalty and runs the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a charity that aids the children of political prisoners -- a very appropriate way of honoring his parents' memory. You owe it to yourself to read this book. You may not agree with everything he says, but what he has to say should be heard.

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Inspiring
Review: This book is an inspiring read that speaks to all of us. Not only has he given us a mvoing personal account of his own life, but Robert Meeropol challenges us all, as he challenges himself, to lead a life of purpose and humanity.

As a child of his generation, I could not help but see bits of myself and the inner conflicts of my life throughout the book. I laughed and read passages aloud to my spouse, but also shed more than a few tears. But in the end, this is a story of triumph and struggle. Not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: gives insight to the mind of a liberal but SAD, SAD, SAD...
Review: This book is so much more than just a recounting of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. It is their son Robert's life journey which is directly a result of his parent's execution. Robert mentions that moral arguments are problematic because they are not necessarily rational. He is right, but that being said, all of his arguments against the "establishment" being wrong have no more credibility than his own opinion of being right. Robert's loyalty to the left and his concern with fighting the "them," who executed his parents almost 50 years ago, has blinded him. We see how the movement is like leaf that just blows in the wind according to the political current. He is so concerned with remaining on the "left," his parent's party, that his own ideologies evolve with the movement. He moves from communism to SDS, to progressive, etc. Robert has no absolute standard for right and wrong. Who can blame him? In a Godless world, there is no absolute standard.

I can't even begin to articulate how this story saddened me though. It saddens me to admit that I had never heard of the Rosenbergs, although I went to an Ivy League University and was familiar with the McCarthy era. I learned about the Rosenbergs from an HBO documentary by Michael's daughter. I also hate to admit that most of my peers have never heard of the Rosenbergs. I was so upset to learn about of all of the Jews who were involved in the execution of Ethel and Julius. Although Robert's recount is very pragmatic, there is such an underlying pain and sadness between the words. What saddened me most is the torn Rosenberg/Greenglass family. As a Jew myself, I can honestly say, their pain is my pain. Family not taking them in; it is not Jewish! Where were those Jewish values and ethics? Robert's story confirms that those ethics and values, which are the religious platform of those founding fathers, which he staunchly tries to uphold, were absent. Ethel and Julius were typical secular Jews whose "ism" was communism not Judaism; as were my grandparents in NYC. The secularism of his parents explains their loyalty to communism which explains his currant loyalty to "Leftism."

Robert is now years older than his parents and with age comes wisdom. Robert briefly mentions a "spiritual or even religious experience;" his foolishness was not exploring that! What Robert fails to see is what makes him like his parents is NOT his vehement loyalty to the left but his pursuit in making the world a better place.

Rating:
Summary: gives insight to the mind of a liberal but SAD, SAD, SAD...
Review: This book is so much more than just a recounting of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. It is their son Robert's life journey which is directly a result of his parent's execution. Robert mentions that moral arguments are problematic because they are not necessarily rational. He is right, but that being said, all of his arguments against the "establishment" being wrong have no more credibility than his own opinion of being right. Robert's loyalty to the left and his concern with fighting the "them," who executed his parents almost 50 years ago, has blinded him. We see how the movement is like leaf that just blows in the wind according to the political current. He is so concerned with remaining on the "left," his parent's party, that his own ideologies evolve with the movement. He moves from communism to SDS, to progressive, etc. Robert has no absolute standard for right and wrong. Who can blame him? In a Godless world, there is no absolute standard.

I can't even begin to articulate how this story saddened me though. It saddens me to admit that I had never heard of the Rosenbergs, although I went to an Ivy League University and was familiar with the McCarthy era. I learned about the Rosenbergs from an HBO documentary by Michael's daughter. I also hate to admit that most of my peers have never heard of the Rosenbergs. I was so upset to learn about of all of the Jews who were involved in the execution of Ethel and Julius. Although Robert's recount is very pragmatic, there is such an underlying pain and sadness between the words. What saddened me most is the torn Rosenberg/Greenglass family. As a Jew myself, I can honestly say, their pain is my pain. Family not taking them in; it is not Jewish! Where were those Jewish values and ethics? Robert's story confirms that those ethics and values, which are the religious platform of those founding fathers, which he staunchly tries to uphold, were absent. Ethel and Julius were typical secular Jews whose "ism" was communism not Judaism; as were my grandparents in NYC. The secularism of his parents explains their loyalty to communism which explains his currant loyalty to "Leftism."

Robert is now years older than his parents and with age comes wisdom. Robert briefly mentions a "spiritual or even religious experience;" his foolishness was not exploring that! What Robert fails to see is what makes him like his parents is NOT his vehement loyalty to the left but his pursuit in making the world a better place.

Rating:
Summary: One Son's Journey
Review: This is a wonderful, inspiring, truth-telling account of the Rosenbergs' younger son's life and growth into a most impressive survivor of the loss of both parents, neglect, and serious mistreatment by the government that executed his parents. Meeropol's view of their innocence is so balanced, so comprehensive, so sane. His commitment to continue their work and ethic is very convincing. The writing is superb--unvarnished and in his own voice, whether as a 5 year-old child or a 56 year-old fully developed social activist.