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

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So what became of Karl Plagge after the war? The Allies put him on trial because he had been a Nazi from the start, and he'd run a slave labor camp. But his disobedience came to light during the trial. They found him innocent of war crimes. But to make a hero of him would've cast too many important Germans as cowards. So the Allies just quietly acquitted him. In autumn 1943, Plagge learned of the Nazis’ plan to liquidate the Vilna ghettos, which meant certain death for all those Jews still alive. But he could not prevent the SS from seizing 250 children from the camp and murdering them while he was on leave. On his return he made no secret of his disgust with what he called the latest "achievements of my fellow Germans".

Karl Plagge - the Nazi Party member who employed and Karl Plagge - the Nazi Party member who employed and

But the honour has only been bestowed after a long campaign by Mrs Good's son, Michael. Dr Good, a family physician who lives in Connecticut, began exploring the story of Plagge after visiting Subocz Street with his mother.

Plagge and work certificates

Unfortunately, most of us could not escape the camp. We could either hide in previously prepared malinas (hiding places) , as my parents and I did, or just await our fate. In spite of all of Plagge’s efforts, only 150-200 of us survived.

Karl Plagge — Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2 Karl Plagge — Wikipedia Republished // WIKI 2

Then, in 1999, in her first post-war visit to Vilna, accompanied by husband Dr. William Good and her son Michael, Pearl Good found the place where she had lived in terror under the Nazi regime, witness to atrocities she could never forget. Mass executions in Vilnius (Vilna) and environs were carried out primarily in the Ponary massacre over the period between July 1941 and August 1944, in which 110,000 people were murdered. About 70,000 of these people were Jews of Lithuanian or other nationality; others were deported to Nazi extermination camps. Plagge tried to spare as many as he could from this by purposely recruiting Jews instead of Poles for labor. [9] His success was only partial; his unit had to retreat, thereby removing the slave-labor framework that had protected them until that point. The SS ultimately succeeded in murdering about 900 – 1000 of Plagge’s 1,250 [10] slave-laborers between the Kinder-Aktion and the final liquidation of the camp. My previous Yated column was written, as planned, before Yom Tov and so did not react to the horrific pogrom against our people inAlthough unable to stop the SS from liquidating the remaining prisoners in July 1944, Plagge managed to warn the prisoners in advance, allowing about 200 to hide from the SS and survive until the Red Army's capture of Vilnius. Of a pre-war Jewish population in Vilnius, only 2,000 survived, of which the largest single group, were saved by Plagge. An old building complex in Lithuania is marked for demolition. It is a prime location and it is time to build new modern apartments, but these old buildings on the outskirts of Vilnius conceal a dark secret; the current residents may not know that they are living on top of the bones of previous inhabitants - Jews who were hiding from the Nazis. Demolition is being halted at the request of an American doctor. I doubt the name Rayan Aourram means anything to you. I doubt it means anything to most of the readership of this newspaper. But German Army Major Karl Plagge, an Unlikely Hero of the Holocaust from Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project