Ruth Greenglass

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mugshot of Ruth Greenglass.

Ruth Printz was born in 1925 in New York City, and grew up in the same neighborhood as her future husband, David Greenglass. Although they were quite young, they wanted to marry before David was drafted and the ceremony was held in late November 1942, when the groom was 20 and the bride just 17. Ruth and David both had an interest in politics and they both joined the Young Communist League.

David was drafted in 1943, and Ruth tried to see him as much as possible even after he had been inducted into the Army. In November 1944, Ruth left New York to visit her husband in Albuquerque, New Mexico while he was working as a machinist on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. It was during this visit that Ruth asked David to forward any information on the project to Julius Rosenberg, David's brother-in-law.

When the FBI questioned David about suspected espionage activities, he agreed to confess and to be a witness against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in exchange for immunity for Ruth so that she could remain at home with their two children. At the trial, Ruth testified that Ethel Rosenberg had typed up the notes that David Greenglass had provided, implicating Ethel in the espionage ring. Ruth also testified that it was Julius and Ethel who had urged her to convince her husband to become involved in espionage.

Ruth rejoined her husband after his release from prison in 1960, and they lived in New York City under assumed names, with their children.