Everyday Canvas

The Rosenbergs

Prompt: Write about something that happened when you were eight years old.

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It’s been so many years since I was eight, decades actually. I don’t really remember much, except for a few personal family matters, but one national incident that created huge noise at the time stands out in my memory.

1951 was when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were accused of being Russian spies who passed on secret information to Russians about nuclear technology. I recall my mother talking to other women about it.

“But how could they? They wouldn’t dare. Maybe there’s a mistake.”

Somehow, she found it hard to believe that anyone could do anything so terrible. She kept hoping they would be exonerated since they had kids. She might have been alone in that because everyone else was deadly afraid of communism at the time.

The couple’s older son was about my age and he was listening to The Lone Ranger on the radio when the agents barged in their apartment and took away his father, later on, his mother. I remember feeling very bad for him, maybe because he was my age.

I remember the news of the two kids being taken to Sing Sing to visit their parents. They probably never saw their parents again, and I really felt bad for them.