The Search for Major Plagge

When The Search for Major Plagge was published last spring, the world finally learned about a unique hero—and about one American doctor’s extraordinary journey to tell Karl Plagge’s story.

Part detective story, part personal quest, Michael Good’s book is the story of the German commander of a Lithuanian work camp who saved hundreds of Jewish lives in the Vilna ghetto —including the life of Good’s mother, Pearl. Who was this enigmatic officer Pearl Good had spoken of so often?

After five years of research—interviewing survivors, assembling a team that could work to open German files untouched for fifty years, following every lead he could, Good was able to uncover the amazing tale of one man’s remarkable courage. And in April 2005 Karl Plagge joined Oskar Schindler and 380 other Germans as a “Righteous among Nations,” honored by the State of Israel for protecting and saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

This expanded edition features new photographs and a new epilogue on the impact of the discovery of Karl Plagge—especially the story of 83-year-old Alfons von Deschwanden, who, after fifty years of silence, came forward as a veteran of Plagge’s unit. His testimony is now part of this growing witness to truth.