Robert Meeropol’s An Execution in the Family renders a fiery challenge to the family values of the right. It is a timely exposé of the violence that flows from the destruction of civil rights and liberties experienced by victims of the “McCarthy-era abuses of power.” It indicts the prison-industrial complex and denounces the death penalty as a “barbaric practice” primarily used as a political tool to silence progressive voices or attack disenfranchised communities.
Meeropol was six years old in 1953 when his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were executed for conspiracy to steal atomic secrets for the Soviet Union. Just before they were put to death, the Rosenbergs wrote a letter to their two sons saying they were “secure in the knowledge that others would carry on after them.” Using the most recently released US government documents (Venona transcripts) and new witness accounts, Meeropol also reveals the results of his research into his parents’ case. Significantly, this book documents the evolution of Meeropol’s own perception of his parents’ case and the political importance of the complexity of the truth.
Not without anger, but imbued with a deep and enduring political commitment to justice, Meeropol lashes out at his parents’ killers, “Those who tried to have us taken away from the Meeropols were not satisfied with killing our birth parents; they wanted to kill the Rosenberg’s legacy as well. They wanted me to grow up forgetting or rejecting my birth parents. In fact they wanted to prevent my growing to create something like the Rosenberg Fund for Children. But they failed.” Today, the Rosenberg Fund for Children provides support for the children of targeted progressive activists and young activists who are targeted themselves.
An Execution in the Family describes a personal and political odyssey from being the Rosenbergs’ son to becoming a prominent political activist in his own right. One focus of his current work has been on capital punishment. Meeropol recalls that in the 1970s, he was interviewed in Philadelphia by an African American journalist. He was asked if he believed that something like what happened to his parents could happen again. Meeropol agreed that it could. That journalist, as it turned out, was Mumia Abu-Jamal. The author points to George W. Bush as “Governor Death,” because while Texas governor, Bush “had ultimate responsibility for the execution of more people than any other person alive in our country today.”
We are fortunate to have this historical and personal account of a difficult time for democracy and justice. It is a remarkable and moving testament of commitment and loyalty and is indispensable for readers of this magazine. Don’t assume that you already know Meeropol’s story until you read this and honest and compelling book. His life hasn’t been easy, and there are no easy answers here.
An Execution in the Family: One Son’s Journey by Robert Meeropol New York, St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
