The Jewish Chronicle
On this day: Ethel Rosenberg is born
September 27 1998: Communist, wife, mother: the first woman executed for spying in peacetime America
September 28, 2010 10:00
September 27 1998: Communist, wife, mother: the first woman executed for spying in peacetime America
September 28, 2010 10:00From a New York Jewish family, Ethel Greenglass was one of only two people in American history to be executed for spying during peacetime. The other was her husband, Julius.
After a lengthy trial, the Rosenbergs were found guilty of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. It was the height of the Red Scare and Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt. Americans were consumed with rooting out those people who were not true “patriots”.
As a young woman, Ethel had hoped to pursue her dream of being an actress, but when the Depression hit she found a secretarial job. Around that time, she joined the Young Communist League, where she met a young Jewish engineer named Julius.
The couple married in 1939. Four years later, Julius’ brother, also a committed communist, took a job with America’s atomic bomb programme; the Manhattan Project. Julius persuaded him to pass information to the Russians, and when the plot was revealed in 1950 Ethel was also implicated. The Rosenbergs were arrested and put on trial in 1951.
