{"id":2405,"date":"2020-04-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2405"},"modified":"2020-06-12T15:02:41","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T15:02:41","slug":"benjamin-levin-holocaust-survivor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2405","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Levin, holocaust survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Benjamin Levin a Jewish partisan during World War II, the last surviving member of the Avengers group led by Abba Kovner died on April 13, 2020 from COVID-19.\r\n\r\nAfter the war, he joined the Irgun, and was one of the surviving crew members of the Altalena ship. In 1967, he immigrated to the United States.\r\n\r\nLevin was born in Vilna, then part of the Second Polish Republic. He was the son of Chaim Levin, a local merchant and gourmet food shop owner. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the family initially fled to the village of Michali\u0161ki [be] in present-day Belarus. When it became unsafe, the family returned to Vilna and lived in Vilna Ghetto. In 1943, when he was 16 years old, Levin and his older brother Shmuel joined the Avengers (Nokmim) partisan group of Abba Kovner. During the war, the Avengers impaired railways, destroyed train cars, cut communication wires, bombed bridges, and injured and killed Nazis. His small stature allowed him to hide, spy, scout, and escape detection easily. His brother was killed during one of the raids though circumstances are not known.\r\n\r\nHe and other Avengers joined the Red Army when it captured Vilnius in 1944. His parents survived the Holocaust but were later killed by neighbors when they tried to reclaim their home. He submitted his testimony of the Holocaust to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. He was interviewed by Steven Spielberg who dubbed Levin “the Forrest Gump of Jewish history.”\r\n\r\nHe was imprisoned by the NKVD for helping Jews to illegally immigrate to Palestine and his involvement in the Irgun, a Zionist paramilitary organization. He spent a year in a Siberian Gulag. After his release he hitchhiked to Italy where he rejoined the party. He studied mechanical engineering and was assigned to the engine room of Altalena. In June 1948, during the confrontation with the Israel Defense Forces, Levin fled the burning ship and settled in Israel.\r\n\r\nIn 1967, Levin moved to New York with his family and became a mechanic for the MTA and a gas station owner. Due to multiple fake papers, Levin forgot his real birthday and chose to celebrate it during the Passover. He was married to Sara, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. They had two children. Levin frequently spoke to high school students about the Holocaust. Levin died on April 13, 2020 from COVID-19 at a nursing home in Westchester County, New York.\r\n<\/p>

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Benjamin Levin a Jewish partisan during World War II, the last surviving member of the Avengers group led by Abba Kovner died on April 13, 2020 from COVID-19. After the war, he joined the Irgun, and was one of the surviving crew members of the Altalena ship. In 1967, he immigrated to the United States. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2406,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[46,7019,15],"tags":[2312,876,2313,877],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/imageholder\/uploads\/Benjamin_Levin.jpg?fit=%2C&ssl=1","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9977,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=9977","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":0},"title":"Mortimer Levin, Physician","date":"April 22, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Mortimer Levin \u2013 a Physician in Detroit, Michigan \u2013 passed away on 21 April\u00a02020\u00a0after suffering from COVID-19. Levin was 99 years old. He was born and raised in Detroit, graduating from Northern High School. He spent his final years at Pomeroy Living Sterling Skilled Rehabilitation Center in Sterling Heights, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Medics"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1720,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1720","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":1},"title":"Henri Kichka, holocaust survivor","date":"April 28, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Henri Kichka a Belgian writer and Holocaust survivor who was one of the leading figures in Holocaust education in Belgium died on 25 April 2020 at the age of 94 in Brussels as a result of COVID-19. Kichka was the only member of his family to have survived the deportation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Belgium"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2351,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=2351","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":2},"title":"Margit Buchhalter Feldman, holocaust survivor","date":"April 15, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Margit Buchhalter Feldman a Hungarian-American public speaker, educator, activist, and Holocaust survivor \u2013 died on April 14, 2020, from COVID-19-related complications. Feldman and her family were placed in a concentration camp in 1944, where her parents were killed immediately. She survived her incarceration after lying about her age, resulting in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3070,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3070","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":3},"title":"Romi Cohn, rabbi, mohel & real estate developer","date":"March 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Romi Cohn \u2013a Czechoslovakian-born American rabbi, mohel, and real estate developer \u2013 died after contracting coronavirus on March 24, 2020. \u00a0 Avraham Hakohen Cohn was born on March 10, 1929 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. He was one of seven children. \u00a0 World War II and the Holocaust See also: The Holocaust\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3251,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=3251","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":4},"title":"William B. Helmreich, sociologist","date":"March 29, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"William Helmreich \u2013a professor of sociology at the City College of New York Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York \u2013 died on March 28, 2020 due to Covid-19. \u00a0 Helmreich, a published author, was a distinguished professor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Noteworthy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1064,"url":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/?p=1064","url_meta":{"origin":2405,"position":5},"title":"Ciro Pessoa, singer-songwriter","date":"May 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Ciro Pessoa Mendes Corr\u00eaa Ciro Pessoa Mendes Corr\u00eaa, also known by his Dharma name Tenzin Ch\u00f6pel, died on May 5, 2020, after contracting COVID-19 while being treated for cancer. He was a Brazilian singer-songwriter, lyricist, guitarist, screenwriter, journalist, writer and poet, famous for being one of the founding members of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Brazil"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ciro-Pessoa.jpg?fit=751%2C735&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6135,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2405\/revisions\/6135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/personmatters.com\/Remembering_Covid_19_Victims\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}