Perhaps the persecution of a valiant Jewish couple like the Rubells will alert the world to the reality of conditions in “the home of the brave and the land of the free.”
I wait with considerable interest for your wise thoughts on these subjects, hubby of mine.
Dolly
February 11, 1951
My sexy vixen,
You ring my bell with your passionate utterances of unity with the people. You are a woman truly worthy of the sweat of the masses. Let me only state that it’s a privilege to know you. That’s how deeply you ring my chime, Miss Sublime! I am of the incontrovertible opinion that it is because we are informed people who have drunk deeply from the well of Those In the Know that we have the grit to stand up and be counted.
Just read War and Peace. Good book.
Those less informed and more backward may puzzle at our determination. Little do they understand how we have mingled our devotion to the People’s Struggle for peace and pie with a healthy slice of our Jewish underdog background for a perfect blendship.
Salud and Go In Peace,
Solly
February 13, 1951
My friend,
I am so hot for you! Hot hot hot!
Do you like this frivolous tone, honey boy? Your Dolly has many tricks up her sleeve once we are united again.
Went to synagogue yesterday and really impressed at how wise our cultural heritage is and how relevant to us, fighting for our freedom, and oppressed as we are by latter-day pharoahs.
I am reading A Lantern for Jeremy by the noted advanced thinker, V.J. Jerome. A real contribution from the cultural front. Also the Declaration of Independence, the Bible, and Corliss Lamont’s guide to a secular humanist funeral.
Nutritious reading!
Dolly
October 8, 1951
My Beloved Colleague,
The days darken early here in Sing Sing and I am compelled to render naught all intimations of negativity by thinking with a correct perspective. As the great Irish progressive Sean O’Connor has declared, “let hail the bright brambling children of Stalingrad, fresh bubbling stream of thistlebrook, so lush the leaves of red earth fulfilled, as I sing my comrades to fruitful hurrahs!”
The pit of degradation and horror lies in wait, but I shall summon forth within myself both perspective and confidence, knowing that the fresh greenery of proper thinking is enveloping the international working class, who will bury the braying jackals of hate who suck blood from the poor and the oppressed.
So your little Doll merrily laughs and hopes to dance on their graves.
Your progressive moll,
Doll
October 12,1951
Dollface,
I just got your letter. Wow! What a woman! What a dame! Your political perspective ripens like a fresh peach! Holy cow, doll, what an animal you are! Frankly, you have a real working-class perspective and you can be in my shock brigade anytime.
Light of my life, the incarceration of Dolores Rubell in Sing Sing is a mean and destructive action. All America cries out at the torture of this progressive heroine, and I can only add my own cavil.
My wife, you humble me with your righteous anger and fortitude. Soon the people will wake up and the facts will reach them.
Just hold the fort, Dolly. I am your loving
Solly
December 3, 1951
Dear Dolores,
I was thinking today of the execution of Willie McGee in May. McGee, as you may recall, was the victim of a frame-up on a rape charge in Mississippi. The legal lynchings of Negroes were not enough for our “leaders”—now they are attempting to do the same thing to political prisoners. Surely the Rubells are sterling examples.
I am enclosing some recent pictures of lynchings for your files, my dear wife—and would like to also point out that bigotry in the good ole U.S.A. is not restricted to the South. A five-foot cross was burned recently in front of a school in New Jersey, where a meeting was held to protest the death sentence of the Trenton Six.
It is impossible to give tongue to all the frightful injustices that are going on in the gruesome new home of the swastika. If they succeed in burning us, they will paralyze other outspoken progressives who criticize the drive toward war. Therefore, my friend, our plight is of utmost importance and linked to the overall peace movement.
In friendly solidarity,
Sol
December 18, 1951
Hubby of mine,
How’s this for a reply to all those smart alecks who tell us we should up and confess? I say to them the train of history doesn’t go backward. The day the Hungarian People’s Republic abandons socialism; the day the German Democratic Republic abandons socialism; the day the Polish People’s Republic jettisons socialism—on that day the Rubells will say they’re guilty!
Dolly
January 3, 1952
Dear Dolly,
You will be interested in a letter I received in the mail today from a rather backward and ignorant mine worker. He wrote: “You people talk with marbles in your mouths. Why don’t you come out with it and tell people what you stand for and what you believe in?”
I was abashed to think of how dumb this poor lout really was. Have the Rubells not stated over and over again their unwavering faith in courage, confidence, and perspective? Have they not stated their belief in the ultimate triumph of decency and justice? Have they not said they stand with the sweet breaths of children, the rosy laughter of the workers, the fight for peace, bread, and roses? Have the Rubells not declared their hatred of the war profiteers, the munitions makers, the Southern Bourbons, the oligarchies and monopolies? Have we not written of how we found the answers to all of the complex riddles which a cold and exploitational society engendered? The answers we found are absolutely correct for all time. They have been proven by experience itself. Anyone who has the guts to explore and examine as we did will come up with exactly the same answers, and, surprisingly, in exactly the same language. Even the punctuation and grammar will be the same. That’s the kind of people we are.
That is why we are indestructible, and why we are in prison today. When the people learn the truth, they too shall hearken and join the common clarion call.
Well, heck, Doll, if that isn’t clear, this guy’s some kind of an idiot, what say?
Golly!—
Solly
(The following letters stay in the vault.—Henky Rubin)
May 23, 1954
Dear Friend,
In sooth, the Rubell case fascinates me. Here is an ordinary couple, their days filled with the little tasks common to their kind. When the time came, and vile disgusting lice spewed their filtheth uponest them, they stood up to be counted.
Lo, when Judgment Day cometh, these poisonous snakes will be ground into the dust where they belongeth.
Thou, my husband, share my profoundeth interest in this case.
Hy Briské laid his unclean hands upon our sacred family. My sister Americans by their inertia let his foul deeds go unchallenged. That little kike bastard, he had a field day with me. There is no creep on the face of the earth like Hy Briské.
Shall my heart forever be fraught with mute, abysmal anguish? What about yours, my husband? Well, it’s almost over for us.
We have shared the best kind of love. I will say it aloud. Red love. The color of history, sex, blood, and revenge. We were not bound by the past, shackled by religious shit and superstition. Those fur traps on the rich bitches in the synagogues didn’t interest us. The big mochers in the front rows in their jewelry and gold stolen from the workers.
There is only one Soviet Union in the world.
There—I’ve said it.
And one Communist Party, the true enemy of genocide and Nazism.
I enjoyed it. I die with glee at what I accomplished.
And you damn well better doeth the same.
Love,
Dolly
May 25, 1954
My dear children,
&nb
sp; The system of thought that Mommy and I believe in teaches us that there are two ways of thinking: the subjective and the objective. It is the objective that allows us to see beyond our own narrow, petty concerns to the condition of all our fellow men and women.
And while at a time like this, I can well understand what my dearest children are feeling, I hope you, Joey, and you, Amy, will see the value of what I am trying to tell you.
You children must know that the sight of you, the feel and smell of you, having you on my lap asking me questions (like yours, Joey: “Where did your moustache go, Daddy?”) are the dearest things I have ever experienced in my life.
Those are my subjective feelings. And I know very well that you love me as your Daddy every bit as much. If there was anything I could do—without sacrificing many other good people to stay with you—I would do it gladly.
But I do not have that choice. My objective thoughts are that what I am doing will benefit millions and millions of little boys and girls. We live in a period of history—and I hope with all my heart that you will someday study and learn this for yourselves—when for the very first time people will no longer live as slaves. They will control their own destinies. The system that has brought this about is the Soviet system. Don’t ever let anyone try to bluff you into doubting this. Up to the very last minute liars have tried to convince Mommy and me that the Soviet Union is a bad place. But we know it is tops. Remember always: there is nothing more cunning than anti-Communism. It is the refuge of haters, scoundrels, and Nazis.
I could have lied and confessed to having done something evil, and betrayed everything that I believed in with all my heart. So could have Mommy. Many other people would have been arrested, and the Soviet Union would have been tarnished in the eyes of the world. The hyenas would have been unleashed.
Just know that your Daddy and Mommy were innocent. We helped the hungry, the downtrodden, the helpless, all over the world by our silence. You will live to see singing tomorrows. In all modesty, your Daddy and Mommy are part of those tomorrows.
Do not forget us. Do not forget why we died. And some day you will understand this as well:
It was for you, my children. For you.
Your loving father,
Solomon
The Catholic Boy
A different vigil.
—G. L.
He was nine years old. He lived between the Croton Falls Reservoir and Mahopac, New York, on Union Valley Road. There were all kinds of memories there connected with the Union Army. The imaginations of the farmers in that area were still linked to the Republican party, back to the Civil War. Even though two world wars had intervened, to them America was the Republican party. The Republican party had saved the Union.
They knew there were Democrats in places like New York City, but they were people who weren’t like them. During the 1952 election he remembers standing at the bus stop with the farmers’ kids and telling them his father supported Adlai Stevenson. They were all a little bit amazed and pissed off, calling him a Democrap. They had never even heard of one in the flesh before. Nor an Irish Catholic either.
The afternoon that the Rubells were executed, he was with the family of his friends. They were on the front lawn of the old farmhouse. The farmer had knocked off somewhat early after his day’s work. He was out on the front porch with his wife. The boy was with the farmer’s two sons, Chet and Mercer Hough. His father used to call him “Farmer Hough,” so he doesn’t recall his first name. It was a beautiful, spacious farmhouse with a big front lawn and huge oak and maple trees. The kids were playing catch and fooling around.
He remembers the Houghs’ concern that the president might weaken, that he might give in and grant clemency to these people. Now he finds it hard to remember if he knew they were the Rubells, if he knew they were Jewish, if he knew what they had been convicted of. He suspects he didn’t. He thinks he knew they were spies, probably that they were Communists—primarily that they were traitors.
The Houghs thought there was a big danger right then: that very powerful influences might get to the president. The Rubells were people who deserved to be punished. The kids picked this up from the parents. The feeling was there had been a lot of weakness in the country, and that for the president to give clemency to these people would just be more weakness. They didn’t think he would, because this was a tough guy. But the feeling was that there were enormous forces that made even the president somewhat weak in comparison.
Now he understands what they thought those “forces” were—the Jews, who somehow controlled the world—but he was just a kid then.
Real Americans wanted these people executed but real Americans were weak and beleaguered. They’d been pushed around and they were probably going to get pushed around again—but maybe the president had enough guts to hold out.
So it was a vigil. They were waiting, on this countryside. This house and farm were the only ones in sight. They had this little valley to themselves. There were no other human beings around. Farmer Hough’s farm and cows and a few kids.
And a radio.
It was well known that there were people who lived up Lake Mahopac who would buy carp when you caught them. It was regarded as bad luck when you caught a carp. Because you didn’t eat them. And they didn’t fight, so you’d think you were just hauling out a log or a tire. But you could get a dollar for it.
They didn’t know what the Jews did with them, but they’d heard that they ate the eyes. No one the boy knew was going to eat fish that lived down in the mud and ate all the garbage off the bottom of the pond.
Suddenly there was a hush and they drew around the crackling radio.
“The Rubells are dead at last,” the announcer said.
There was a sense of relief, not exaltation: “Well, that’s over,” and it turned out all right. The radio was snapped off. They went back to playing catch.
Things hadn’t gone wrong.
There were vigils going on at Union Square, at Sing Sing, in left-wing neighborhoods. They were participating in another kind of a vigil.
He remembers a very pleasant summer day and a very pleasant summer evening. A beautiful end to a beautiful day.
The House on the Hill
Close the door on your way out.
—G. L.
In 1949 the house on the hill was a jewel. Looking out over everything. You couldn’t survey it; it surveyed you. Ziggy and Sarah Weissberger had immense wealth and standing in the world. Libraries and capsules were named after them. Their names connoted substantial values, commitment, and integrity.
The lighting of this house high on the hill was fantastic; if you looked up at it at night, the lights blinded you.
To this house came hunted figures. They drank out of goblets, slept in silk sheets and silk pajamas; little nips of caviar were offered to them on gold trays.
A personal tragedy occurred in this house: the death of a child; a tragedy that would send the family fleeing at night forever from this reminder of their mortality.
But in 1949 the house was still lit.
Sarah Weissberger, noted lawyer, skipping up and down, holding her butterfly dress and train so they wouldn’t trail on the floor. A woman of principles could dress like a flibbertigibbet. Ziggy—tuxedo, bow tie, sneakers, that delicious touch. The servants wore tuxedos and shiny black shoes. They had official badges with the title, “Friend.” The paintings were Picassos, Van Goghs, Matisses; in addition, Charles White, Hugo Gellert, Rockwell Kent, and William Gropper were in discreet alcoves. Supreme Court justices on arrival saw Picasso, Utrillo, portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The pig imagery was muted, in darkened areas where the servants hunted for food and the dogs killed. Portraits of Robeson, Ben Davis, and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn resided in locked studies.
The famous senator stayed with the Weissbergers upon his return from his trip to Kolyma. He arrived aglow with stories of the “great experiment” and bearing the souvenir bones of counterrevolutionaries. He gave a small
bone to the Weissbergers as a gift.
On the same night, a frightened Solly and Dolly Rubell appeared unexpectedly at the doorstep, stinking with terror. Solly had already been visited by the F.B.I. The smell was so strong that the Weissbergers were afraid it would reach the senator, three rooms and four vaults away. They were deeply conflicted; on the one hand, they looked at the couple in front of them as saints; on the other, as wretched runts. Their feelings were the dialectical contradictions of living under capitalism. They showed their proletarian solidarity by taking the stinking couple into their arms and embracing them, then spirited them away into the tower until the senator departed. They ordered the servants to delouse the couple and give them new togs.
The tower was reserved for political prisoners in flight, for progressives from around the world. Here everything was in the open: the pig imagery was forthright, the pictures of Stalin and Dmitrov and Lenin large and lustful. Soviet medals and rugs and medallions hung on every wall. Stalin’s Collected Works were assembled on bookshelves in luscious red leather volumes.
The Weissbergers, with their Germanic culture, were not the ghetto Jews of Rivington Street, of Perry Street, the Jimmy Higginses. They revered the Rubells, but how common they seemed, the crumbs on their clothes, their accents. That whole little gang of engineers. They had heard Solly say: “They had no use for us as Jews. But others did. Good use, and we utilized our skills to the max.”
Not being paranoid or poor themselves, they could not share the sentiments. A new university in Chicago had just been named after Ziggy; a nutrition drive was launched across America with Sarah’s picture and name; the Weissbergers’ weekly radio program was almost as popular as Howard Mayfield’s.
They knew that many Americans bowed their heads when their names were spoken. Their money had softened people’s brains and their hostility toward Jews. They gave away a thousand and got millions back in reputation. They were known for their philanthropy, their enlightened attitudes, and especially they were known for their money. The country knew of their special concern for children whose legs were of different sizes. Movietone News frequently ran shots of the bejeweled, befurred Sarah in her butterfly dress putting her arms around a little limping child, the two of them walking together (one walking, one hopping) into a sunlit forest, Sarah murmuring, “Come along, my child,” or “Dear heart, you can do it. You can do anything you want to do.” These movie vignettes often came at the end of segments about war, famine, bigotry, and anti-Semitism, and were a heartening windup to the news.
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