Criminal
03-13-2003, 02:08 AM
http://www.ucsc.edu/currents/99-00/12-06/red.html
Book on the lives of children of communists includes entries by three UCSC faculty
By Barbara McKenna
The news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is a touchstone memory for most Americans, who can vividly remember where they were, what they were wearing, and who they were with when they heard the news. One small group of Americans has another touchstone memory, one that invaded their personal lives in an even more disturbing way. They are red diaper babies--the children of American communists--whose young worlds were shook with the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1953. After all, the Rosenbergs, guilty or not, could have been their parents.
The experiences of many of those children have been recorded in their own words in Red Diapers (University of Illinois Press).The book, edited by Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro, features contributions from people ranging in age from their early 20s to mid-80s, including three UCSC professors--David Wellman, Bettina Aptheker, and Marge Frantz. Among the other contributors are former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein and Robert Meeropol, one of the Rosenbergs' two sons.
In his essay, Wellman, a professor of community studies, writes, "For communist kids, whose parents were publicly identified as enemies of the state, minor transgressions could be cause for major alarm. I lived in mortal fear that, no matter how petty, my violations of 1950s morality would make me responsible for my mother being deported or my father going to jail."
Wellman's father, Saul, was a leader in the Michigan Communist Party and his mother, Peggy was an active member as well. When Wellman was a boy, his father went underground for two years before being caught and jailed. During his father's period of hiding, the Wellman family was the focus of intense FBI surveillance.
But even before his father became a fugitive, Wellman notes that there was a sensibility in his family of the lack of tolerance they faced as communists. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, in the 1950s, Wellman writes that his family "devoted considerable energy to fitting in." Wellman and his sister, Vicki, conformed so well, in fact, that they received the American Legion Award for "Americanism" in junior high. Although the media found irony in this, Wellman says his parents saw communism and American patriotism as perfectly compatible. His father was a war hero and his mother a Canadian immigrant. They were proud of their children for being model citizens.
Book on the lives of children of communists includes entries by three UCSC faculty
By Barbara McKenna
The news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy is a touchstone memory for most Americans, who can vividly remember where they were, what they were wearing, and who they were with when they heard the news. One small group of Americans has another touchstone memory, one that invaded their personal lives in an even more disturbing way. They are red diaper babies--the children of American communists--whose young worlds were shook with the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1953. After all, the Rosenbergs, guilty or not, could have been their parents.
The experiences of many of those children have been recorded in their own words in Red Diapers (University of Illinois Press).The book, edited by Judy Kaplan and Linn Shapiro, features contributions from people ranging in age from their early 20s to mid-80s, including three UCSC professors--David Wellman, Bettina Aptheker, and Marge Frantz. Among the other contributors are former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein and Robert Meeropol, one of the Rosenbergs' two sons.
In his essay, Wellman, a professor of community studies, writes, "For communist kids, whose parents were publicly identified as enemies of the state, minor transgressions could be cause for major alarm. I lived in mortal fear that, no matter how petty, my violations of 1950s morality would make me responsible for my mother being deported or my father going to jail."
Wellman's father, Saul, was a leader in the Michigan Communist Party and his mother, Peggy was an active member as well. When Wellman was a boy, his father went underground for two years before being caught and jailed. During his father's period of hiding, the Wellman family was the focus of intense FBI surveillance.
But even before his father became a fugitive, Wellman notes that there was a sensibility in his family of the lack of tolerance they faced as communists. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan, in the 1950s, Wellman writes that his family "devoted considerable energy to fitting in." Wellman and his sister, Vicki, conformed so well, in fact, that they received the American Legion Award for "Americanism" in junior high. Although the media found irony in this, Wellman says his parents saw communism and American patriotism as perfectly compatible. His father was a war hero and his mother a Canadian immigrant. They were proud of their children for being model citizens.