The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews, Expanded Edition

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Good - persuaded his parents to accompany him on a visit to Vilna, where he met the people who saved his parents' lives during the wartime German occupation. He told them that he and his men were relocated to the west and he asked for permission to take his skilled workers with them but was not granted permission. It's not just the typical villainizing of the evil Nazi Germans, but an even deeper look into the nature of all who either watched, aided or benefited from the extermination of a defenseless people. On July 1st, 1944 Major Plagge entered the camp and as the prisoners gathered around him, he made an informal speech. In 1934, Plagge began to work at Hessenwerks, an engineering company run by Kurt Hesse, whose wife Erica was half-Jewish.

Jewish men, women, and children, including Good’s mother, by refusing to follow protocol and outwitting his superiors.It only required a convincing strength that anyone can draw from the depths of a moral conscience everyone has. He was cleared of war crimes after survivors testified at his trial, but he insisted on being classified as a "fellow traveller". The front line is moving west and HKP's assignment is to always be a certain number of miles behind the front line. Karl Plagge ( pronounced [kaʁl ˈplaɡə] ⓘ; 10 July 1897 – 19 June 1957) was a German Army officer who rescued Jews during the Holocaust in Lithuania by issuing work permits to non-essential workers.

The author's parents attribute their own survival to the actions of a Wehrmacht staff officer, whom they merely knew as a `Major Plagge', who to their personal knowledge, had saved the lives of hundreds of Jewish and Polish inhabitants of their home town, the city of Vilna. She never talked to us about how she survived, but there she told me about this mysterious officer, Major Plagge, who she said saved her life and the lives of her parents and 250 other Jewish prisoners," he said. He grew up in West Covina, California, outside of Los Angeles and attended Occidental College in Los Angeles where he majored in Political Science. During World War II, he used his position as a staff officer in the German Army to employ and protect Jews in the Vilna Ghetto.It seems there could have been a unifying story line more along the lines of a screen play which integrates the stories the author discovers after the story of his mother concludes. It required only the conviction and strength that anyone can draw from the depth of moral feelings that exists in all humans. Former prisoners of HKP 562 in a displaced person camp in Ludwigsburg told Maria Eichamueller [ who?

I was just very struck that a Wehrmacht staff officer, a major, would be trying to save Jewish prisoners. Originally a Lutheran, Plagge lost his belief in God because of the atrocities that he witnessed during the Holocaust. Good decides that the saintly Major Plagge must be commemorated, but is hindered by the fact, that none of the people who honor the Major's memory, even know his first name!According to historian Kim Priemel, the success of Plagge's rescue efforts was due to working within the system to save Jews, a position that required him to enter a "grey zone" of moral compromise. The Jews in the HKP camp knew, however, that before the SS retreated, the SS would most likely kill any Jewish slave laborers that might have been left behind. The SS wing of the Nazi party were particularly brutal and heartless and their behavior is chronicled here as well. Dr Good tracked down survivors and documents to put together a case for Yad Vashem to recognise Plagge's heroism.