Oral history interview with Allen S. Levin

Oral History | Digitized | Accession Number: 2015.103.1 | RG Number: RG-50.865.0001

Overview

Interview Summary: Cantor Allen Levin, born June 26, 1924 in Cleveland, OH, describes growing up in a family of teachers, musicians, and specialists in rabbinical studies, and were originally from Lithuania; studying Hebrew from age six on and graduating from Hebrew College; attending the Ohio State Conservatory and graduating from Ohio State in 1943; earning degrees in theology and music education after the war and becoming a cantor in Ohio in 1948; moving to Roanoke, VA in the mid-1950s; the loss of his family members who remained in Europe during WWII, except for one family who escaped to Israel; being drafted into the military and trained for a year in the OTC at Ohio University; leaving the US on January 16, 1944 and returning on January 16, 1946; discovering, along with the other nine men in his squadron, a concentration camp in Munchen-Gladbach (Mönchengladbach), Germany in April 1945; how his company (Cannon Company) was in charge of searching for weapons, cameras, and film in row houses; his memories of the camp; staying in the area for a month and how few of the prisoners were alive in the camp; the drawings he did of the camp; how after WWII ended he was in charge of supervising the German-Russian living quarters and represented the Polish-Spanish office in Bremen, Germany; meeting a German judge, Shultz, and visiting the judge and his family; learning of the judge's son-in-law, Karl Ewald, an engineer who had been captured by the Americans; and seeing Karl years later on a PBS program.
Interviewee: Cantor Allen Levin
Interviewer: Dr. Marcia Horn
Date: interview: 2006 July 27
Credit Line: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Marcia Horn

Physical Details

Language: English
Extent: 1 DVD.

Rights & Restrictions

Conditions on Access: There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
Conditions on Use: Restrictions on use. Restrictions may exist. Contact the Museum for further information: reference@ushmm.org

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Administrative Notes

Legal Status: Permanent Collection
Provenance: Dr. Marcia Horn of Ferrum College produced the oral testimonies during her 2006-2007 videotaping project in Southwest Virginia and Northern North Carolina. She donated copies of her interviews to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in March 2015.
Special Collection: The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive

Record last modified:: 2023-11-16 09:34:34
This page:: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn105860

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Oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors, liberators, veterans, a rescuer, a witness, and the child of a Holocaust survivor produced by Dr. Marcia Horn.

Date: 2006-2007

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