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Musings on siblings

• Message 1. 

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:26:21 GMT
  
  Just finished watching a documentary on the Rosenbergs and one thing at the very end has stuck in my mind, hence these musings: the fact that it was only in 2001 that David Glass admitted to falsifying, with the FBI's help, the document that sent Ethel Rosenberg, his *sister*, to the electric chair nearly 50 years earlier. (This is not about the rights and wrongs of the Rosenberg trial, unless others want to discuss it.)It's the idea that Glass could live with himself, knowing his sister was innocent and that he was depriving his two nephews of their mother, which I can't get my head around.
  
  As an only child, I am stumped that whatever one's fears or ideologies, one would voluntarily betray/sacrifice one's own brother or sister, if one's own family wasn't in immediate danger (okay I can envisage that if it were a question of saving your brother or your child, you probably would save your child.) Am I idealising siblinghood?
  
  Any thoughts?

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by RosieT (U2224719) ** on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  <>
  
  Edward and William Grundy?

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 2.

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:49:16 GMT, In reply to: RosieT [
  
  Rosie, in all seriousness, there is a huge difference between beating up your brother under the effects of strong emotions, and then hating him for ever on the one hand and falsifying evidence, in cold blood, that will end your sister's life and make her name so ignominious that your nephews are forced to take on another surname, on the other.
  
  No?

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Elaine (U531229) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 17:47:58 GMT, In reply to: E. Yore (Ms.) [
  
  I didn't really know much about this aspect of the case, E.Y - although I knew about the Rosenbergs. I've just been googling around to see what I could find and it seems that David Greenglass was himself under arrest for spying and feared that his wife would also be arrested....and this is why he responded to the prosecutions encouragements to lie.
  
  I can see exactly what you mean about not being able to live with yourself having sent your sister to her death but two thoughts come to my mind. Firstly, how much did he fear for his own life and his wife's ? Maybe this fear could make any of us do things we wouldn't normally do. Or another thought.... the Rosenbergs were accused of conspiracy and I'm not sure that the death penalty would have been seen as the expected sentence - capital punishment not being the usual sentence for this crime. Maybe he didn't expect them to be executed...but simply to serve time in prison as he did ( reduced I think for helping out the prosecution.) Sorry if I've got this all wrong - bear in mind I haven't read the book about him and I'm not well versed in the story - I'm just trying to see another possible side to the story. However, I have to admit that I wasn't impressed by his apparent lack of concern for what he had done when he was interviwed in 2001
  
  E.

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Bleak_Midwinter_Squirrel_Nutcase (U2248205) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Like you, E Yore, I can't imagine doing anything so extreme, though I have had to 'betray' (tough love) my mentally troubled sister by summoning medical help on more than one occasion recently when she was delusional, but she thought she was sane, which is bad enough. It still feels like betrayal of a sibling even when you know you are doing right.
  
  More seriously, my father discovered shortly before the end of his life that his female cousin, with whom he had sustained close lifelong amicable contact, had attempted to denounce him to the collaborative authorities in wartime France (Velay/Auvergne borders).
  
  One of his former comrades eventually, a couple of years before his own death, produced the intercepted letter, the original of which I now possess, in her unmistakeable handwriting.
  
  All the worse, in that my father had been active in an attempt to save her entire family (brother and both parents were shot dead at their farmhouse) when she was the only survivor, by being prevented from going there by him.
  
  How could she live with that, until my father's death, while still welcoming us back almost every year of my childhood and adolescence? Dad predeceased her, and continued to see her annually for the last few years of his life, without mentioning it once to her, which I find amazing. She is still alive as far as I know, though I have stopped asking about her.
  
  And now what? This has to stop somewhere, surely. I have always been on good terms with her daughter, my cousin to the woteverth degree (we don't much care about degree on the French side of the family), her daughter. I feel I must never, never tell her what I know about her mother, of whom I thought as a kind auntie in my childhood and teenage years.
  
  Not many ideals left here, alas. $qxx
  

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:07:32 GMT, In reply to: Elaine Mc [
  
  Elaine, I agree that in mitigation, living in the US of the 1950s must have been very scary for some - my mother's thesis supervisor was hauled up before HUAC and had it not been for the university digging in their heels, might have lost tenure at the very least, if not job as well. But many people were courageous and brave and stood up to the bullying (the kindest word I can find) which makes DG's behaviour then and since all the more sickening.
  
  Greenglass (not Glass as I said, well spotted) seems to have done whatever he did only for his personal safety/gain rather than from ideology.
  
  I haven't read any of the books on the case, only saw this documentary but was struck by the nonchalance with which he sent down his sister. And there appears to be no remorse for what he has done.

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• Message 7

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by E Yore (U1479700) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:15:44 GMT, In reply to: Squirrel_Marie [
  
  < my father discovered shortly before the end of his life that his female cousin, with whom he had sustained close lifelong amicable contact, had attempted to denounce him to the collaborative authorities in wartime France (Velay/Auvergne borders)>
  
  That *is* akin to the Greenglass/Rosenberg case, Squigs, albeit with most distant ties and a happier ending. Your father must have been a wonderful man to be so truly magnanimous towards his cousin and not to have said anything. One generation on, what is the point of ruining relations that are cordial for something that cannot be fixed? Perhaps you might have felt differently had your father not survived.

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• Message 8

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by martine (U2324011) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Reply to #1
  
  David Greenglass doesn't seem to have lost any sleep over this. It is possible for siblings to hate each other or be profoundly indifferent.
  
  Nancy Mitford allegedly reported her sister Diana, who she loved dearly, and who doesn't seem to have minded much. Of course, had it not been Nancy, it would have been someone else.
  
  Also wartime conditions, or Cold Wartime as it were can explain a lot.

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• Message 9

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by Elaine (U531229) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  Sun, 30 Oct 2005 19:39:47 GMT, In reply to: E. Yore (Ms.) [
  
  < Greenglass (not Glass as I said, well spotted) >
  
  Not really well spotted E.Y. as I said I hadn't really heard of the man before and did a bit of googling to find him...hence the name...hope you didn't think I was correcting you.
  
  The bravery of many people in difficult times is astounding isn't it.I'd love to think that I'd be brave enough to stand up for what I thought was right - no matter what the personal cost - but I suppose none of us know how brave we'd be until we were tested. However brave or otherwise Greenglass was, he certainly didn't show any remorse. I'd hope that,even if I couldn't be as brave as I might want, I'd be aware of what I'd done and not, many years later, show no sadness or regret for it.
  
  Elaine

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 7.

  Posted by Bleak_Midwinter_Squirrel_Nutcase (U2248205) on Sunday, 30th October 2005

  #7, E. Yore Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:15:44 GMT, In reply to: Squirrel_Marie [
  
  < my father discovered shortly before the end of his life that his female cousin, with whom he had sustained close lifelong amicable contact, had attempted to denounce him to the collaborative authorities in wartime France (Velay/Auvergne borders)>
  
  That *is* akin to the Greenglass/Rosenberg case, Squigs, albeit with most distant ties and a happier ending. Your father must have been a wonderful man to be so truly magnanimous towards his cousin and not to have said anything. One generation on, what is the point of ruining relations that are cordial for something that cannot be fixed? Perhaps you might have felt differently had your father not survived. 
  
  My father did survive that treachery. Had he not survived, I would not be here myself to relay his story.
  
  He was indeed a wonderful man, albeit that he described himself in his as yet unpublished memoir (but I'm working on the English translation) 'just one of the little men' in the Resistance.
  
  The administrators of the Resistance monument on Le Mont Mouchet greatly honoured him by permitting his ashes to be ceremonially scattered around the monument itself. He was only the third person for whom such permission was granted, though sadly, the applications must be flocking in now, as he predeceased his colleagues unusually early.
  
  One to two generations on, I see no point in ruining my good relations with my innocent cousin who wasn't even born then.
  
  My cousin's peace of mind will be part of my father's incredibly generous and great-spirited legacy to his world. I just wish so much had not been demanded of him, even though I am humbled and proud at the same time to have learned from his life. $qxx

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