Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg was born in the bustling metropolis of New York City to Barnet and Tessie Greenglass, a family who struggled to make ends meet and resided in a substandard, unheated tenement. As the only daughter, Ethel attended Hebrew schools and Seward Park High School, where she excelled and graduated at the remarkable age of 15.
After completing her education, Ethel began working as a clerk for a shipping company, but her tenure was short-lived due to her involvement in organizing a women workers' strike to protest poor working conditions and low salaries. This early display of activism and determination would become a hallmark of her life.
Ethel's next chapter was marked by her membership in the American Communist Party, where she became involved with Julius Rosenberg, a civilian inspector for the Army Signal Corps during World War II. The couple met at a New Year's Eve benefit and eventually tied the knot on June 18, 1939.
As a homemaker, Ethel dedicated herself to raising their two sons, Michael and Robert, while Julius pursued his entrepreneurial ventures, including a small machine shop in Manhattan that unfortunately failed. The business's demise led to Julius's brother, David Greenglass, leaving the partnership.
In 1950, David Greenglass, who had previously worked as a low-ranking sergeant at Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, was arrested and accused of being a member of a spy ring that had supplied atomic secrets to the Russians. In a shocking turn of events, Greenglass implicated Ethel and Julius, claiming that they were also members of the ring.
The couple was arrested and tried under the Espionage Act, a 1917 law enacted to counter the American anti-war movement. Despite the lack of concrete evidence against Ethel, she was found guilty of espionage alongside Julius and sentenced to death on April 5, 1951.
For the next two years, Ethel lived on death row at Sing Sing prison, maintaining her innocence and hoping for leniency. Her pleas fell on deaf ears, and on June 19, 1953, Ethel was executed in the electric chair, becoming the only American woman to be executed for espionage.
The controversy surrounding the couple's guilt has persisted to this day, with some arguing that the evidence against them was flawed, while others maintain that they were indeed guilty of treason. In 2001, David Greenglass admitted to lying about Ethel's involvement in the spy ring, but Nikita Khrushchev's memoirs later confirmed that the Rosenbergs had indeed committed treason.
