Plagge saved not only skilled male workers but also their wives and children, arguing that the workers would not be motivated without their families. Mordecai Paldiel, the director of the committee, thanked Pearl Good for making the trip to Vilnius with her family and sparking the chain of events that uncovered Plagge's actions during the war. I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone, whether or not they had a historical or Holocaust interest in the war. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. 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.

A few Jews hid in the ruins of the ghetto; arguing that he needed more workers, Plagge brought 100 arrested Jews into HKP. But he could not prevent the SS from seizing 250 children from the camp and murdering them while he was on leave.Good eventually traces Major Plagge, makes a fascinating story in itself, which he describes in his wonderful book.

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. In September 1943, rumor spread that many of the Jews in the Vilnius ghetto were to be taken by the SS regardless if they had working papers.After leaving Vilnius, Plagge led his unit westward and surrendered to the United States Army on 2 May 1945 without suffering a single casualty. In this fascinating book, the author, who married a lady of Italian descent, expresses the wonder he used to feel, that at the yearly picnic of his wife's family, there would be crowds of relations, whereas in the case of his parents' family, he could only view photographs of relatives who were all dead. Michael Good has appeared on C-SPAN, as a speaker in Israel, and in Germany and in schools, libraries, churches and synagogues across the United States.

In particular, the Vilna Ghetto was seen as a threat because of its extensive underground movement and the proximity of partisans in the woods around the city. The risk for Plagge was that he would be accused of favouring Jews, and this was really a very serious offence.

Plagge attempted to contact Neugebauer, but was unable to, and the Jews were all deported to Klooga. The book is written by a physician - William Good - whose parents - William and Pearl Gdud - were WWII holocaust survivors who fled to this country from Vilna in Lithuania. Plagge was born to a Prussian family in Darmstadt, Germany, on 10 July 1897; many of his ancestors had been military doctors.