Concentration camp inmates
Photo: AFP
Yad Vashem honors Nazi hero
Posthumous ceremony bestows honor on German officer who saved Jews
JERUSALEM - A German military officer who became known as the "Nazi who saved Jews" was honored Monday by the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem for rescuing hundreds of Jews from death camps during World War II.
In an emotional posthumous ceremony, Maj. Karl Plagge was named a "righteous gentile,” an honor reserved for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
Plagge served as a Nazi officer in Lithuania from 1941-44, where he was in charge of a factory that employed hundreds of Jews. According to Yad Vashem, Plagge employed unqualified people to save them from deportation, and warned his workers in June 1944 that German troops were approaching and they would be handed over to the Nazis.
The warning enabled some 200 people to escape and survive. “The experience of human-made horror is frequently accompanied by hope," Johann-Dietrich Worner, president of the Technical University of Darmstadt said.
No surviving relatives
"Karl Plagge and similar examples prove that even in the darkness of misdeeds exists the light of hope, of humanity in inhuman situations.”
Worner accepted the honor on behalf of Plagge, who was a graduate of the university. Plagge, who died in 1957, has no surviving relatives.
During the ceremony, Dr. Simon Malkes thanked Plagge for saving his life and the lives of many other Jews.
Following the ceremony, participants congregated outdoors in the Garden of the Righteous Gentiles, where Plagge's name was unveiled on a wall.
Six-year search
The ceremony capped a six-year odyssey by Michael Good, an American physician from Connecticut whose mother was among those rescued by Plagge.
Good began searching for Plagge in 1999 in an effort to thank his family - only to learn that Plagge and his wife had no children. The effort grew into a major project that included Good's recently published book, "The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews."
Good's mother, Pearl, unveiled Plagge's name on the memorial wall during Monday's ceremony, Yad Vashem said.
