in 1953, american husband and wife julius and ethel rosenberg were executed by electric chair after beingng for the soviet union. our final witness is the rosenbergs' son, robert. news archive: one of the greatest peacetime spy dramas in the history of the nation reaches its climax asjulius rosenberg and mrs ethel rosenberg, convicted of transmitting secrets to russia, into the federal building in new york to hear their doom. the last time i saw my parents was in sing sing a couple of days before they were executed injune 1953. i have this very strong visceral sense of a warm and loving family. my father played word games with my brother. i sat on my mother's lap — they were pretending like nothing was wrong, that we would see them like we would see them in another few weeks. my brother, he knew that was wrong, and he wanted them to acknowledge the terrible situation that we were all in. and so he started wailing, "one more day to live". both my parents were children of the depression, they grew up in poverty on the lower east side of manhattan. my fatherjulius was an electrical engineer,