"Untold: Stories of a World War II Liberator," a film created by Deborah Levine, daughter of a World War II military intelligence officer, will be televised at 8 p.m. Friday on Jewish Life TV.
In the documentary, Levine shares the wartime letters of her father, Aaron Levine. The film utilizes historic stills and images, as well as the voices of several people reading the words of key characters in the letters.
Levine said by phone she didn't know of her father's wartime experiences or the letters until she took a job with the Tulsa Jewish Federation after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and was assigned work monitoring hate groups.
Because of her work, she began conversing with her father, who then shared his war experiences tracking down Nazis and told her about the letters.
Contributed Photo by Deborah Levine / Estelle Swig Malloy, before her marriage to Aaron Levine."We exposed a lot of neo-Nazi activity and propaganda (in Oklahoma), and the fact that I was working with the FBI opened the dialogue with my father," said Levine, who lives in the Chattanooga area.
A few years ago, she enlisted the help of Chattanooga-based actor/musician/teacher Dylan Kussman ("Dead Poet's Society") to help her write a script about her life. A cousin suggested it might be quicker to write one based on the letters.
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She did and originally recorded it as an audio-only piece at WUTC. Jewish Life TV reached out and said it would be interested in showing it if she could create a film version. With the help of family members, who taught her to use iMovie, and folks at Jewish Life TV, she made the film using family photos and pieces from the Holocaust Museum.
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Both of her parents are now deceased, as are her siblings. Levine said the movie carries a lot of meaning for her.
"I really wrote it because I was so passionate about it," she said.
Levine serves as narrator. Kussman voices the words of her father. Local 3 News anchor Greg Glover voices Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Dennis Parker directed the 58-minute film, while Hollywood composer Michael Levine (Aaron's nephew) composed the music.
Charlene Hong White voiced Estelle Levine. Trish Ross portrayed Aunt Polly. Joel Scribner voiced Leon Weisband, and George Hoctor portrayed Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter.
Kussman said he felt a powerful sense of responsibility in being a part of the project.
"Deborah is a friend, so when she had it ready as a radio broadcast, I was deeply honored go into the studio with her and read the words of her father to bring him to life on a personal level," he said in a phone interview. "The Holocaust is one of the great crimes of the 20th century, so it was not something I took lightly for several reasons."
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Aaron Levine was trained at Fort Ritchie, a secret United States military intelligence camp that trained Jewish immigrants who spoke French and German to serve as spies and interrogate Nazi POWs.
In the film, viewers hear the letters that he hid in a file cabinet in his closet for decades, brought to life by the actors. Among them are the love letters of Estelle Swig Malloy, a special education pioneer whom Aaron married after they graduated from Harvard. Weisband was a Polish Holocaust survivor, and his words describe the Nazi invasion of his hometown, Zwolin.
For Glover, the project gave him a reason to do a little more research and to be a part of something he calls special.
"It's an amazing experience to be able to breathe life into these very important parts of history, so it can be readily available to people," he said by phone. "To make this more readily available to people to learn from and to get a piece of history they maybe didn't know about before is special. Especially when you get to learn about a great Tennessean like (Secretary of State) Cordell Hull."
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354.
Contributed Photo by Deborah Levine / Aaron Levine