The June sun beats down on the world outside the window, but stuck inside the room that
you will soon die in, it’s stone cold.
As chills run down your spine, you’re guided toward the elusive chair across from you.
The last chair you’ll ever sit on.
You’d seen pictures of it in the newspaper before now, but had never for one second imagined
this was how your own story would end.
You’ve not yet sat down, yet already you can feel the clamps around your wrists and
the hard surface beneath you as you feel one last jolt go through your body…
You’re still breathing for now, but at the same time, you know your time is nearly up.
Where did it all go wrong?
As if you were already on your deathbed, the moments that led you up to this point in your
life run through your mind.
It’s 1939, your wedding day.
The day you became Mrs. Ethel Rosenberg.
It went just the way you’d always hoped.
The birds were singing, the sun was shining, your mother was crying – well, maybe that’s
an exaggeration.
But it was a nice day that you’ve always remembered fondly.
“Do you, Ethel Greenglass, take Julius Rosenberg to be your lawful, wedded husband?”
“Yes, I do.”
Together, you and Julius were always the quintessential American couple.
Both American through and through, you married at the ripe ages of 21 and 24.
He was an engineer, you were a secretary.
In the years that followed the marriage, you’d go on to form the perfect nuclear family:
house, two kids, dog.
Well, not the dog, but you know what I mean.
Nobody who knew you back then would ever have guessed that you’d end up where you are
now.
The first US citizens to face execution for spying during peacetime.
But there were a few subtle differences that marked you apart from other couples your age.
Instead of meeting at college, a bar, or – I don’t know – a burger house, you met your
husband through your joint involvement with the Young Communist League.
That’s right: instead of bonding over rock music or independent film or whatever it is
normal people do, you fell for your husband through a mutual appreciation of Marxism.
Together, you dreamed that one day the working classes would free themselves from their chains
and seize the means of production.
You hoped to steer the leader of the free world away from exploitative capitalism and
toward a fairer life for all.
Who would have known how far those early dreams would take you?
Having such ideas wasn’t completely heard of at the time.
The Young Communist League USA was established shortly after the revolution in Russia, and
saw a rise in popularity after the Great Depression.
Many people were looking for a solution and thought the answer might be Communism.
Maybe it was just youthful idealism.
Only, things escalated more than you’d originally anticipated.
Your husband, Julius, worked as an engineering inspector in the Army Signal Corps Engineering
Laboratories, giving him first-hand knowledge of America’s development of the atomic bomb
– including some top-secret information.
The Soviets were always on the look-out for potential spies from the US, and as a keen
Communist with a useful work position, Julius was an obvious choice.
At first, he didn’t tell you what was going on, but you began to suspect something was
up.
He started spending more time alone in his room or away for mysterious meetings.
Eventually, you found out the truth.
He’d been contacted by the NKVD, the Russian secret police, he told you in whispers and
hushed tones.
Your stomach filled with butterflies, and your mind started to wander, sick at the possibilities
of what would lie in store.
But at the same time, you knew this was your chance to make your mark, to change the world
for the better for the greater good.
You’d do whatever it took to help Julius.
Julius would pass on information about the weapons, designs, and testing he came across
in his work to the Soviets.
Putting your experience as a secretary to good use, your role involved typing up the
documents.
You weren’t involved in gathering or sending the information, but you knew what was going
on each step of the way.
At times, when you thought about what was going on, it scared you.
Yet at the same time it felt like your purpose in the world.
And how would anyone ever catch you, anyway?
At first, Julius’ role was simple: passing on information to the Soviets.
But when they saw him as a reliable recruit with great potential, his responsibility began
to increase.
Soon enough, Julius had the job of recruiting new spies and leading them.
This new role carried a great deal of risk, and at times both of you would toss and turn
at night thinking about it, but you knew you couldn’t think of your little life above
the whole of humanity.
One of the newest recruits became your brother, David.
Putting someone so close to you in danger was uncomfortable, but surely, he would be
happy to help – David had always been sympathetic to the cause of communism.
Plus, he was a machine operator working on the Manhattan Project, where he worked directly
with the development of the atomic bomb.
In this role, he had access to a wealth of valuable information, and that couldn’t
be ignored.
The biggest battle of your lifetime may just be underway, between East and West, capitalism
and communism.
You were now in a position to influence the course of history and ensure the world veered
in the right direction.
For that, you’d always been prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.
Only, you didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.
In 1950, you got the news your husband was arrested.
You felt sick.
The accusation?
He’d led a spy ring and passed information about the USA’s atomic bomb on to the Soviet
Union.
You had so many questions.
Who had given him in?
Would they hand you in, too?
What if they were torturing your husband right now?
If he gave them your name, who would look after the children?
For a few weeks, your life went on as normally as it could.
You weren’t arrested, and you even dared to think you’d gotten away without charges
somehow, although that scarcely made the situation better.
You allowed yourself some hope.
Maybe the evidence was too small for him to be convicted and you could both flee to the
Soviet Union.
Two months later, you went to the court in an attempt to further Julius’ appeal.
You’d barely made it out of the taxi when you were circled by police and arrested at
the spot.
Sure enough, it was for the same reason as your husband: espionage.
Who would give you in to the authorities like this?
You’d been as discreet as possible and the only people who knew what you were up to were
others who had been involved in it with you.
Perhaps there was a double agent amongst Julius’ spy recruits.
You’d always been suspicious of that new guy with the weird facial hair…
Yet the truth was even more shocking than any of your suspicions.
You hadn’t been betrayed by a prying neighbor or a bad apple amongst the recruits, but by
your own flesh and blood.
It turned out that your little brother, David, had been the one to turn you in.
You couldn’t believe it.
Although recruiting new members had made you nervous at first, he’d been the last person
you expected to execute the ultimate betrayal.
He’d seemed so passionate about the cause.
Why the sudden change of heart?
You’d thought you were all in this together.
And you still were, in a way.
David had testified against himself as well as the both of you, and now faced prison too.
Why would he abandon his wife and family by turning himself in to the authorities?
It was all so strange.
The first days alone in your cell were cold and lonely.
You were now separated from your husband and your children.
You had to keep going, for them.
Keeping your mental health and morale strong was going to be key to winning that battle.
You weren’t sure what the future held, but you’d get through it.
You had to.
The days passed by slowly, but eventually the day of your court case came.
It felt like walking into your funeral, instead.
It was surreal entering the building with all eyes on you, as if you were a cold hearted
criminal.
All you’d done was fight for a cause you believed in.
You hadn’t harmed anyone or robbed a bank.
You turn to Julius, hoping for a sense of support or relief, but the empty look in his
eyes just made you feel more desperate.
You could almost sense the hatred filling the room, the detest everyone in there felt
for you.
The traitors of the nation.
The judge had been given two choices for you and your husband: 30 years imprisonment or
execution.
Neither gave you much hope – it killed you knowing that you wouldn’t be able to care
for your children, no matter what the outcome – yet you did want to live.
Many expected that your husband would be executed, whilst you would be imprisoned.
Yet you still had some hope you’d both be let off.
The hardest part was watching your brother, who you’d grown up with and loved all your
life, testify against you in front of all those strangers.
He couldn’t even look you in the eye.
Also helping to prosecute you was Roy Cohn, a prominent lawyer who had played a key role
in leading the witch hunts against communists.
As you listened to the evidence against you both, it was far from crystal clear.
One person’s word against another: you or your brother.
Even if they chose to prosecute you in spite of this, just to prove their point, surely,
they wouldn’t deem you worthy of death?
You no longer wanted to live for yourself at this point, not knowing your brother had
betrayed you and killed your husband, but you felt a duty to carry on for your children.
The moments leading up to the verdict were tense.
Everyone in the room was silent.
Your heart was in your throat, and it was beating so fast you thought the person next
to you might hear it.
Julius Rosenberg.
Execution.
Ethel Rosenberg.
Execution.
No.
No, no, no.
You turned numb.
An event like this was unprecedented.
Executions were uncommon for anyone but murderers.
Never before had an American citizen faced such a hard sentence for spying.
The shock that hit your chest was unbearable, as if you’d just been winded.
Officials roughly carried you away in handcuffs, to be sent to prison.
Of course, once you came to your senses, you decided you weren’t just going to give in
without a fight.
You’d fight tooth and nail to free your husband and yourself.
The evidence against you was so small – surely there had to be some kind of case in that.
Besides, you didn’t kill anyone, you didn’t even harm anyone.
An arrest, sure, but being executed for spying?
It was ridiculous.
Immediately afterward, you and your husband were taken to Sing Sing, a maximum-security
prison in New York where prisoners were frequently executed by the electric chair.
Despite the strangely jolly name, the prison was brutal and joyless.
Most of your free time was spent fighting against your sentence.
After the media attention from your trial, people all over the world started to argue
your case.
There were those who feared and hated communists, and despised you for betraying the country
to the enemy.
But there were also plenty of people arguing you’d been sacrificed in a kind of show
trial, to prove a point and tastelessly play to public opinion.
You tried to ask for pardon directly from the President at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
but he stated you and your husband were potentially responsible for the death of millions of people
by potentially provoking an atomic war.
As the days passed by with no good news, you became increasingly hopeless.
Eventually, you ran out of time.
And that’s how we reached this fateful day on the 19th June, 1953, with the electric
chair in Sing Sing prison laid out in front of you.
In a matter of minutes, you’d be breathing your last breaths.
It was so brutal, so unnatural.
The first time a burst of electricity hit your body, it was like torture.
You closed your eyes and gritted your teeth, waiting for the moment you’d leave this
world.
Instead, you found you were still alive.
So, they did it again.
After the second time, you can see the smoke above you, floating.
And again, and again.
Finally, after the fifth attempt, you close your eyes and surrender.
At least, that’s how the official story goes.
More recent evidence has suggested that maybe Ethel Rosenberg was innocent after all.
Although her husband was almost certainly a spy, the only evidence against her was that
given by David Greenglass, and that’s where things get murky.
Long after the whole thing happened, Greenglass admitted he’d been told to implicate his
sister to protect his wife, resulting in him changing his story at the last minute.
To make things even juicier, some have speculated that Greenglass’ wife was the one typing
Julius Rosenberg’s notes, or that Greenglass was lying to save his own life.
So, who knows?
Were the Rosenbergs just pawns in a game played out in the Communist witch hunt during Cold
War America?
Or does their background speak for itself, regardless of the evidence?