Robert Meeropol

Robert Meeropol (born 1947) is the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Meeropol was born in New York City. His father Julius, an electrical engineer, was a member of the Communist Party. His mother Ethel (née Greenglass), a union organizer, was also active in the Communist Party. When Robert was six years old, his parents were executed for conspiracy to commit espionage.

Early life

After the Rosenbergs were arrested, Robert and his older brother Michael lived with their maternal grandmother, Tessie Greenglass. After three months Tessie decided she was unable to care for them and the boys were sent to Hebrew Children's Home. After several months, Sophie Rosenberg, their paternal grandmother, removed them from the children's home and decided to care for the boys herself. During their stay with Sophie, the boys were allowed to visit their parents in Sing Sing prison. After one year with Sophie, the boys were sent to New Jersey to live with the Bach family, friends of the Rosenbergs. They were eventually adopted by folk musician Abel Meeropol and his wife Anne, and took their last name.

Activism and career

In the 1960s and 1970s, Robert became active in the anti-war effort. With his brother, he also sued the FBI and CIA under the Freedom of Information Act, winning the release of 300,000 previously secret documents pertaining to his parents' case. Feeling that the documents proved their parents' innocence, Robert and Michael co-wrote a book about their childhood, "We Are Your Sons: The Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg" (1975). Robert followed the book in 2003 with "An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey".

Robert received undergraduate and graduate degrees in anthropology from the University of Michigan. From 1971 to 1973 he taught anthropology at Western New England College in Springfield, Massachusetts. From 1974 to 1978 he worked actively with the National Committee to reopen the Rosenberg Case and the Fund for Open Information and Accountability. From 1980 to 1982 he was managing editor of "Socialist Review" in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1982 moved back to Massachusetts and soon after enrolled in the Western New England College School of Law from which he graduated in 1985, and was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar.

In 1990, Robert founded the Rosenberg Fund for Children, a non-profit foundation which provides support for children whose parents are progressive activists involved in court cases as well as for targeted activist youth.

Robert is married to Ellen Meeropol. They have two daughters: Jennifer and Rachel. Their daughter Rachel is a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City.

Guilt of father

In 2008 Michael Meeropol and Robert Meeropol finally admitted that their father was a Soviet spy. Despite that admission they still hopefully believe: "whatever atomic bomb information their father passed to the Russians was, at best, superfluous; the case was riddled with prosecutorial and judicial misconduct; their mother was convicted on flimsy evidence to place leverage on her husband; and neither deserved the death penalty." [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Father Was a Spy, Sons Conclude With Regret |url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/nyregion/17rosenbergs.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin |quote= |work=New York Times |date=September 16, 2008 |accessdate=2008-09-17 ]

Books

* "We are your sons : the legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg" (1975) ISBN 0-395-20552-2.
* "An Execution in the Family: One Son's Journey" (2003) ISBN 0-312-30636-9.

References

External links

* [http://www.rfc.org/rmbiography.htm Biography of Robert Meeropol]
* [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/rosenb/ROS_BMER.HTM Michael and Robert Meeropol] - Biographies of Key Figures in the Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg