Posted on 04/12/2005 4:26:12 AM PDT by jalisco555
A German army officer who saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazi Holocaust in Lithuania has been honoured at a ceremony in Israel.
The story of Maj Karl Plagge was unearthed by a US doctor, Michael Good, who began searching in 1999 for the Nazi who had saved his mother.
Maj Plagge sheltered about 1,200 Jews at a vehicle workshop while the SS annihilated the Vilnius ghetto.
Plagge, who died in 1957, was honoured by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
It is unusual for Yad Vashem to bestow the "Righteous Among the Nations" title on a German who was part of the Nazi war machine, the memorial's chairman Avner Shalev told the BBC News website.
"He asked for more and more workers and tried his best to keep the conditions relatively more humane," Mr Shalev said.
Plagge, who served in Vilnius from June 1941 to June 1944, ran a repair facility for German army (Wehrmacht) vehicles, where hundreds of Jews worked.
Ceremony
Yad Vashem's Certificate of Honour and medal were presented to Professor Johann-Dietrich Woerner, President of Darmstadt Technical University, where Plagge was once a student.
Dr Good conducted painstaking research into Plagge's story Plagge had no surviving relatives.
Mr Good and his parents attended the ceremony along with about 30 survivors.
"I spent a lot of time thinking and obsessing about my quest, learning about him and getting him recognised," Mr Good said.
The search for evidence was difficult, as Mr Good had to collect testimonies from survivors scattered across the globe.
Mr Shalev said some of Plagge's key letters to the German high command were discovered in archives only recently.
"We wanted to be sure he hadn't committed any crimes against humanity - that's why it took so long... All the survivors said he had saved their lives."
Plagge hired about 1,200 Jewish workers from the ghetto - 500 men, and the rest women and children, Mr Shalev said.
Plagge told the high command that keeping families together would boost the workers' motivation - thereby defying the SS troops, who were killing Jews en masse.
Record scrutinised
As the Red Army approached and the extermination of Jews intensified, Plagge hinted at the fate awaiting his workers - enabling about 250 of them to flee.
Despite his efforts, the SS took away the Jewish children.
Plagge joins 20,757 men and women recognised by Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews from annihilation by the SS.
Of them, only 410 are German and few of them were German soldiers.
Yad Vashem approved the honour for Plagge last July.
It had twice rejected Mr Good's petitions because it required evidence that the officer had taken a "considerable and conscious risk" to save Jews.
He joined Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler in the roll of honour at Yad Vashem.
Schindler, hero of a 1993 movie called Schindler's List, saved up to 1,200 Jews by employing them in his munitions factory during the war.
Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved many Hungarian Jews.
Mr Good recently published a book called The Search For Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews.
I only read about the escape of the Danish Jews recently.
http://auschwitz.dk/Denmark.htm
In 1943, in German-occupied Denmark, the Danish people find out that all 7,500 Danish Jews are about to be rounded up and deported to German concentration camps. Danish citizens spontaneously make their own decision: it's not going to happen. And it didn't. Risking their own lives, the Danes quickly rallied round to save their fellow citizens, and almost all of the country's Jews were able to escape the clutches of the Nazis and find refuge in neutral Sweden.
I'm aware of this. A very brave people.
Though not enough of these heroes, there were more of them-- more than we will ever know. And, of course, there were many heroes, who didn't survive. I remember reading of a Japanese 'Wallenberg,' who gave out passports to Jews to go to Japan!
In this story there is a special medal of courage for the then-King of Denmark; Christian. Upon hearing about the "final solution" plans that were to be extended to then-occupied Denmark, the King donned the star of David himself, and soon many Danes took to wearing the star as well, thus rendering the nazi order ineffective.
Sadly, Denmark now has many anti-Semitic incidents these days due to Muslim immigration.
May Major Plagge be blessed for his courage in saving the persecuted at great risk to himself. If there had only been more like him. Denmark did a tremendous act of decently in 1943; sadly, like most of Europe, it has forgotten its roots and become a Eurabian colony of anti-Israelism.
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
A most inspiring story.
For a picture of the man, click on the BBC link at top of article.
Thanks for posting that additional info.
Great story!! Thanks for sharing.
I heard Mr. Good in an interview the other day. He said that when the Allies investigated Major Plagge after the war (to sort out the true Nazi criminals, the fellow travelers, and innocent people), Mr. Plagge insisted on being categorized as a "fellow traveler." He could have been cleared of all wrong doing (people spoke in his favor) but Plagge wanted to be considered a "fellow traveler" because he had voted for Hitler. Plagge quickly became disenchanted with the Nazi Party but did not make excuses. One gets the sense that Plagge was an honest man who did not take the easy way out.
Unfortunately, the story about the Danish king wearing the Star of Davis is a charming, but untrue, urban myth.
yes, I've heard that too, and wondered if it were true or not...
My doubts were dispelled, though, a couple years back. I worked with a guy who was born here to a Danish family, and had the honor of breaking bread with them. Both were living in Denmark during the war, and both confirmed the story.
Snopes isn't perfect, after all...
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