The savage manipulation of children is a human rights abuse, a kind of state-sponsored terrorism. History may not be repeating itself, but it is echoing loudly. We hear that asylum seekers have been told that their children will be returned to them if they drop their asylum claims and agree to leave the country. Both reported incessant crying and workers told they could not hug the children.Īs Michael and I were 65 years ago, these children are being victimized as pawns by a government with a strong political agenda. At least two childcare workers at the detention centers have quit after realizing how these children were being treated.
Today’s victims are in strange land, and do not speak English. We were in relatively familiar territory. While our seizure from Abel and Anne was vigorously protested and fought, the Meeropols knew where we were. Except that there is some chance they will see their parents again, I imagine their terror is even worse than mine. This second forced separation is alarmingly similar to what has happened to thousands of children at our southern border. If they cooperated, and named names, my father would not have been executed and my mother would be released so she could take care of her children.Ībel Meeropol with Robert, left, and Michael, right, in 1954. The public record makes it clear that my parents had been offered a deal. What I did not know then was that Michael and I were also being used as political pawns. The government’s steadfast determination that they pay for their actions or name others clearly took precedence over any regard it had for our welfare as children. Many are familiar with my parents’ case they were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and ultimately executed in 1953 for supposedly stealing what the government called “the secret of the Atomic bomb.” When Michael and I were finally allowed to visit our parents in prison, my first question was, “Why you no come home?” In the shelter, I was even separated from my brother. Where were my parents? I didn’t see them for almost a year. Some were terrified to have us in their homes because of the virulent hate spread by the policies of the McCarthy period, so we also spent time in a children’s shelter. Over the next three years, we were shuttled between family members. Until then, my brother Michael, who was seven, and I were living in what I remember as a warm and loving family. My parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were arrested and jailed shortly after my third birthday in May 1950. The disturbing images and soundtracks of young children being torn from their parents’ arms have reopened the wounds of my childhood.
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