Confessions of a Rosenberg grandchild

[Cyxeris]

Coming to terms with an execution
Wednesday, January 21, 2004 Posted: 11:24 AM EST (1624 GMT)

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg as newlyweds in New York's Central Park. The two were later convicted and executed as spies.


PARK CITY, Utah (AP) -- Few filmmakers examining their family history in a documentary would find themselves in the thick of the Academy Awards race.

When your grandparents are Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, though, the subject resonates far outside the immediate family.

Ivy Meeropol's "Heir to an Execution" chronicles her effort to come to terms with the lives and deaths of her father's parents, executed as traitors in 1953 after being accused of relaying the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets.

"I grew up with this. It was always there and I knew about it because it was just part of our lives. But I didn't really feel the need to delve into it before," Meeropol, 35, said in an interview at the Sundance Film Festival, where "Heir to an Execution" is among 16 films competing for the top documentary honor. The film also is one of 12 up for Oscar consideration in next Tuesday's nominations.

"Then I started to be curious about people who knew my grandparents, and family members, too, that I had never talked to. On the personal side, I wanted to know more about what happened, and I wanted to bring people along on that journey."

The film weaves archival footage, family home movies and Meeropol's conversations with her father, Michael Meeropol, his younger brother, Robert, other relatives and associates of the Rosenbergs.

A deeply personal, occasionally heartbreaking affair, "Heir to an Execution" paints a rich portrait of a devoted couple whose names came to symbolize Cold War hysteria.

'Ambiguity and uncertainty'
While the film humanizes the Rosenbergs, it does not lionize them. The Meeropols are convinced Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were railroaded, yet the film makes clear that the family believes Julius may have been a spy and that Ethel likely would have been aware of her husband's activities.

Ivy Meeropol and her father, Michael. Ivy Meeropol examined the Rosenberg story from her family's perspective.
In the 1970s, her father and uncle crusaded to reopen the case, convinced their parents were entirely innocent, and Ivy Meeropol grew up with the same conviction. But government documents released in the mid-1990s caused the family to reevaluate whether Julius Rosenberg might have been trading secrets to the Soviets.

"I (agree) with the film," said Michael Meeropol, 60, who came to Sundance for his daughter's premiere. "I think the film has done a really good job of identifying the legitimacy of accepting ambiguity and uncertainty.

"I'm willing to live with that," he added. "I can make a fairly good case that the government's documents are disinformation and therefore should be disregarded, or I can make a fairly good case that it's legitimate, and my father is the person in those documents."

Meeropol was 10 when his parents went to the electric chair at Sing Sing.

The documentary captures heartwrenching moments for the Meeropols, including Michael and Robert's return to the family apartment where they had lived until their parents' arrest. Ivy Meeropol visits the Rosenbergs' graves and has a tearful reunion with a distant cousin after other members of the long-divided Rosenberg family refused to meet with her.

Archival footage includes compassionate statements from Anne and Abel Meeropol, supporters of the Rosenbergs who stepped forward to adopt the two boys after the executions.

'I'm being very honest in the film'
The camera also documents Ivy Meeropol's visit to the modest home of Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass, who worked at the atom-bomb test site and testified against the Rosenbergs, but admitted two years ago that he lied about some of his testimony.

Ivy Meeropol decided against knocking on the door and confronting Greenglass. Just seeing his house satisfied her curiosity, and she did not want audiences sympathizing with Greenglass as an old man being pursued by a camera crew.

"I'm being very honest in the film," Ivy Meeropol said. "I just let go of him as the main villain."

The film documents the Rosenbergs' final hours, as demonstrators for and against the executions hit the streets, reporters mobbed Sing Sing and President Eisenhower refused to commute the sentences.

On June 19, 1953, Julius Rosenberg was electrocuted, and Ethel followed him minutes later. To the end, authorities offered Ethel Rosenberg an out, telling her she could avoid the electric chair by confessing.

People have often wondered why she did not do it for the sake of her sons, Michael Meeropol said.

"At the last minute, our father's already dead, and what she would have had to do is make up stuff," he said. "She would have had to say, 'Yes, my husband was a spy,' and then she would have had to lie and say, 'I was, too.' So now she goes to jail for 30 years. Does she really take care of us that way? Does that really help take care of us?

"Her response was to stand by him and stand by that incredible commitment. And that way, as Ivy says in the film, we get to grow up respecting and loving them."


http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/21/sundance.rosenbergs.ap/index.html

[seraph]

Thanks Cyx
this is very deep stuff!
Thanks again!
That's all I can say.

[Cyxeris]

I know that alot of my posts are of completely no direct relevance to music and electronic music, but I sense that these are issues and informations of interest to the participants here, and are certainly of relevance to the goings on in our world.

Cyx

[seraph]

I agree. You are not off topic at all. An issue like this one is perfectly relevant to each one of us.
Have you ever heard of the Sacco and Vanzetti case?
Read more about it.
Only in August, 1977 (50 years after their execution), Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts signed a proclamation that recognized the faults of the trial and cleared the names of Sacco and Vanzetti.

[Cyxeris]

Even in America (which is, perhaps, far less suprising than it SHOULD be), humans treat one another with less dignity and respect than that which most countries butcher their livestock with. That doesnt necessarily apply literally, of course. What is there that is literal about respect and dignity, after all, aside from application? It would be in our best interests as a nation and a people to wake the hell up. Rather quickly, I would say.

It is becoming most discouraging to hear it stated from on high that to criticize our government, it's members, and its decisions and policies is to be anti-American and unpatriotic. In other words, to identify a problem with America (Slavery, opression of women, Nixon and Watergate, Andrew Johnson and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Bush and the Patriot act (but not limited too) ) and to demand that America deserves better is somehow anti-American. Where is that wacky Orwell fellow when you need him?

I dont know, perhaps it would be best to consult the Declaration of Independence itself and see what it has to say on the matter:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. "

That sounds like some pretty unpatriotic anti-American shit to me, judging by way of the standards being established by our current government. Man, is it just me or am I in a mood today...?

Cyx

[Cyxeris]

[seraph]

[Cyxeris]

Leary yes, but not in the same way. I wouldnt consider if bashing at all. If anything, a plea.

Cyx

[elektro80]

[mosc]

[Cyxeris]

I'm one of those people who has difficulty seperating things I consider important. It's not that there is music, and friends, and over there family, and over here society, and politics, it's more like musicfriendsfamilypoliticssocietyetc. It isn't any of these things independently, rather they're just all part of the same aspect of my life, and I express myself concerning them all with similar vigor. Maybe that's why I am the OT Bandit of e.m.

I dont know, perhaps this will help in making me a good Presidential candidate for the '16 race.

Maybe in '20.

Cyx

[mosc]

[Cyxeris]

[elektro80]

I am an outsider. Literally. I am norwegian. The polical climate in Norway is way different from what you guys have over there. My opinions, which I can elaborate if you guys want me too, are based on the norwegian tradition... which is also connected to the european tradition. OK, the US constitiution was really based on french ideals.. one thing is having this constiution, another thing is living in a world which gave birth to the same... and being a part of what happened next.
There is nothing wrong with the US citizens. People are people all over the globe. The only prob with the US is the leadership, not the constitution and the people. And the leadership of the US is money and the big corporations and the arms industry. Anyway.. I might be wrong.. but this is how I see this now. In fact, I am concerned about you guys. I think the US is close to really big shit. Hmm.. this reminds me also a bit of what many of my very nice german friends have told me about the new "german guilt". In some way or another I think the whole US culture has to take in what the US leadership really has done to the US and the world at large. And feel the guilt.. and join the rest of the world.. and then get this little globe getting on with business.

Jeremy, despair is ok. And there is no rule that we have to feel comfortable with whatever is out there. And please.. do run for president. If you do that, I will feel confident that there is someone out there that understands the pain of being alive. Nothing is easy. Being alive sucks big time.

[Cyxeris]

Well, if I have traditionally considered myself a conservative, or to be more accurate, a "liberalesque conservative," and noting my score on the Political Compass thingamajigabobber, maybe I should. I'd have to start my own party though, I can't stand soap operas.

Cyx

[mosc]

[paul e.]

i am afraid the us citiizen does have reason to feel guilty..

obviously not EVERY american

but most americans explicity support the leadership

if the support is not explicit, it is complcit or implicit..


and, worst of all, willingly over- consume on all levels of existence



NO ONE REALLY QUESTIONS authority

oh some educated people may whisper to each other, but for the most part americans seem to be in a great daze

mesemerized by the media

and doing nothing about it...

victimes of inacticity and frankly, obesity


lots of potential exists in america but it is asleep, buried deep below the self-imposed, self fulfilling 'manifest destiny'

it is for these reasons and others why virtually all americans should feel some guilt and responsibility for the anti-human movement that has found it's home in the good old USA

[paul e.]

elektro 80

[elektro80]

Not really, try reading Ferdinand Celine. On the other hand..

[paul e.]

i am convinced 'love' is the most powerful energy on the earth...

let's feel some love for the US hehehe

[elektro80]

Deep shit? The US economy. If the US economy really falls apart, then the results of this will be very devastasting.

[paul e.]

not neccessarily..

i can think of a lot of benefits of a reduced US economy..
actually tonnes


least of which would be the earth itself -

[mosc]

Sudden, one of the reasons I love to visit Canada is because there really is a different point of view there.

Toronto is close enough to drive to for dinner. I can get there on one tank of gas. The people speak the same language. Everything looks pretty much the same. But, it is really a different country. Montreal and Quebec more so even.

One thing I've noticed in traveling to Canada and Europe recently;
people don't hate Americans. They seem to feel some kind of compassionate pity for us; sorta like how we feel for the poor oppressed people in Iran or something. You know, "Iranians are good people. If only they could get out from under their oppressive Islamic government then everything would be great". Americans generally can't relate to this WRT America.

Sudden it right about America being spellbound by the media, and the media is controlled by a few powerful commercial interests. That's an essential problem here, in my opinion. It's a problem for music, culture, and politics. It makes us, as William Leaderer said in the title of his book from the 1950s, "A Nation Of Sheep".

[elektro80]

[seraph]