William P. Levine

Last updated
William P. Levine
BornJuly 1, 1915
Duluth, Minnesota
DiedMarch 29, 2013(2013-03-29) (aged 97)
Highland Park, Illinois
Known forUS Army intelligence officer
Holocaust speaker

William P. Levine (July 1, 1915 – March 29, 2013) was a United States Army officer. During World War II, he served in the US Army as an intelligence officer. Levine was among the first Allied Forces to enter the Dachau concentration camp in Germany. He would eventually rise to the rank of Major General. After the war, he was active in the Chicago Jewish community.

United States Army Land warfare branch of the United States Armed Forces

The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution. As the oldest and most senior branch of the U.S. military in order of precedence, the modern U.S. Army has its roots in the Continental Army, which was formed to fight the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783)—before the United States of America was established as a country. After the Revolutionary War, the Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself descended from the Continental Army, and dates its institutional inception from the origin of that armed force in 1775.

Military Intelligence Corps (United States Army) Branch of the United States Army

The Military Intelligence Corps is the intelligence branch of the United States Army. The primary mission of military intelligence in the United States Army is to provide timely, relevant, accurate, and synchronized intelligence and electronic warfare support to tactical, operational and strategic-level commanders. The Army's intelligence components produce intelligence both for Army use and for sharing across the national intelligence community.

Allies of World War II Grouping of the victorious countries of World War II

The Allies of World War II, called the "United Nations" from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War (1939–1945). The Allies promoted the alliance as a means to control German, Japanese and Italian aggression.

Contents

Early life

Levine was born in Duluth, Minnesota, to Joseph and Sadie Levine. [1] He was the eldest of four brothers. [2] He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1937. After graduation, he worked in retail sales before being drafted into the Army in 1942. [1]

Duluth, Minnesota City in Minnesota, United States

Duluth is a major port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Saint Louis County. Duluth has a population of 86,293 and is the 4th largest city in Minnesota. It is the 2nd largest city on Lake Superior, after Thunder Bay, Ontario. It has the largest metropolitan area on the lake, with a population of 279,771 in 2010, the second-largest in the state.

University of Minnesota public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States

The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses are approximately 3 miles (4.8 km) apart, and the St. Paul campus is actually in neighboring Falcon Heights. It is the oldest and largest campus within the University of Minnesota system and has the sixth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 50,943 students in 2018-19. The university is the flagship institution of the University of Minnesota system, and is organized into 19 colleges and schools, with sister campuses in Crookston, Duluth, Morris, and Rochester.

Military career

Levine graduated from the Army's Officer Candidate School in May 1943. He served with the 34th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Group as an intelligence officer. His unit participated in the D-Day invasion on Utah Beach, as well as the liberation of Dachau. The horrors Levine witnessed at Dachau would trouble him for the rest of his life. For a short time after the war, Levine assisted in the operation of a displaced persons camp. He assisted with the provision of food and clothing for, and the eventual resettlement of, more than 5,000 Holocaust survivors. [3]

Officer Candidate School (United States Army) US Army Officer commissioning program

The United States Army's Officer Candidate School (OCS), located at Fort Benning, Georgia, trains, assesses, and evaluates potential commissioned officers in the U.S. Army, U.S. Army Reserve, and Army National Guard. Officer candidates are former enlisted members, warrant officers, inter-service transfers, or civilian college graduates who enlist for the "OCS Option" after they complete Basic Combat Training (BCT). The latter are often referred to as "college ops".

Utah Beach code name for the right flank of the Allied landing beaches in Normandy

Utah, commonly known as Utah Beach, was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on June 6, 1944 (D-Day), during World War II. The westernmost of the five code-named landing beaches in Normandy, Utah is on the Cotentin Peninsula, west of the mouths of the Douve and Vire rivers. Amphibious landings at Utah were undertaken by United States Army troops, with sea transport, mine sweeping, and a naval bombardment force provided by the United States Navy and Coast Guard as well as elements from the British, Dutch and other Allied navies.

The Holocaust Genocide of the European Jews by Nazi Germany and other groups

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by local collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews—around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe—between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era, in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered other groups, including Slavs, the Roma, the "incurably sick", political and religious dissenters such as communists and Jehovah's Witnesses, and gay men. Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises to 17 million.

During his military service, the Army sent him to engineering school so that he could acquire the skills to command a company of engineers. [3]

Levine was discharged from active military service in 1946. He continued his service in the Army Reserve, as executive officer of the XIV Corps in 1960 and rising to commanding officer in 1962. When the XIV Corps was deactivated in 1967, Levine was appointed commanding general of the U.S. Army's 84th Division (Training). He was promoted to Major General later that year, the rank he would retire with in 1975. [3]

XIV Corps (United States)

XIV Corps was a corps-sized formation of the United States Army, originally constituted on 1 October 1933 in the Organized Reserves. The history of XIV Corps in World War II dates from December 1942. Then, under Major General Alexander Patch, the XIV Army Corps directed the American 23rd Infantry Division and 25th Infantry Divisions, the 2nd Marine Division, and the 147th Infantry Regimental Combat Team in the final drive that expelled the Japanese from Guadalcanal early in February 1943. The 70th Coast Artillery Regiment (Anti-Aircraft) landed on 23 May 1943. From air fields guarded by the XIV Army Corps, Allied aircraft began the neutralization of the enemy's vital Munda airfields on New Georgia.

84th Division (United States)

The 84th Training Command ("Railsplitters") is a formation of the United States Army. During World War I and World War II, it was known as the 84th Infantry Division. From 1946 to 1952, the division was a part of the United States Army Reserve as the 84th Airborne Division. In 1959, the division was reorganized and redesignated once more to the 84th Division. The division was headquartered in Milwaukee in command of over 4,100 soldiers divided into eight brigades—including an ROTC brigade—spread throughout seven states.

In retirement, Levine served as chairman of a retired officers association for the Army in the Midwest. [3]

During his military career, Levine was awarded the Legion of Merit and Distinguished Service Medal. [1]

Civilian career

In 1946, Levine, his brothers, and his cousins founded a small plastics company in Duluth that molded advertising and display signs. In 1948, he moved to Chicago to establish the Lakeside Plastics Sales Co., a separate sales division for the plastics firm. He retired in 1975. [3]

After his retirement, Levine served as the construction project manager for many north suburban Jewish organizations. He supervised the building of the Solomon Schechter Day School in Northbrook as well as two synagogues in Deerfield, Moriah Congregation and B'nai Tikvah. Levine also supervised the renovation of North Suburban Synagogue Beth El in Highland Park. [3]

Holocaust speaker

The scenes Levine witnessed when he entered Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945 were so terrible that he refused to speak about them, even to his family. However, Levine believed, "the most important and effective method of preventing another Holocaust is truth and education". It was this belief that led to his speaking about his experience at Dachau nearly 40 years later. [4]

Levine attended a 40th anniversary memorial ceremony for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. While at the cemetery, Maurice Pirot, a Belgian Jew, recognized Levine as one of his saviors, the soldier who had rescued him by carrying him in his arms. [1] [4]

In May 1990, Levine recorded an oral history with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He spoke about his life, wartime experience, and work with Holocaust victims. [2]

He also spoke at Chicago's 1995 annual Holocaust Remembrance Day. He spoke about his experience and the experiences of the victims he met there. [4]

Personal life

Levine married twice. His first wife, Leah Goldberg, [1] died in 1975. In 1980, [3] he remarried Rhoda Kreiter, who survived him. [1] He had one son and four daughters. [1]

Levine died of respiratory failure on March 29, 2013 in Highland Park, Illinois, at age 97. [3]

Legacy

The Pritzker Military Museum & Library maintains a William P. Levine Collection containing an assortment of Levine's World War II-era military documents, maps, photographs, and artifacts. [5] Per the Chicago Firearms Ordinance, Levine's German Walther PP 7.65-mm. handgun, which he brought back to the United States after obtaining permission from the US Army, cannot be housed at the museum; it is stored with other handguns at a gun range in Lombard, Illinois. [6]

The Moriah Congregation in Deerfield, Illinois, has a flag circle dedicated to Levine. The flag circle and garden landscaping were dedicated on June 4, 2006 in the presence of then-US Congressman Mark Kirk and Illinois State Representative Karen May. [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Nelson, Jacob (5 April 2013). "Obituary: Major General William P. Levine". Highland Park Patch. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  2. 1 2 "Oral History Interview with William P. Levine". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 23 May 1990. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Goldsborough, Bob (22 April 2013). "William P. Levine, World War II veteran helped liberate Dachau, dies". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 "Man Frees Holocaust Memories". Chicago Tribune. 26 April 1995. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  5. ↑ "William P. Levine Collection". Pritzker Military Museum & Library. 1 July 1915. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  6. ↑ Miller, Joshua Rhett (15 May 2013). "Chicago gun laws bar museum from displaying Nazi weapon seized by WWII hero". Fox News . Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  7. ↑ "Major General William Levine's Garden". Moriah Congregation. 4 June 2006. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
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