William P. Levine

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.

Early life Levine was born in Duluth, Minnesota, to Joseph and Sadie Levine.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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.

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.