Documentary Screening at Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek

CBSRZ and TBT Come Together for a Film Event Highlighting a Little Known Holocaust Story

On Sunday, November 3rd, at 2:00 pm, Temple Beth Tikvah and Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek, join together to show the documentary film, The Good Nazi.  Taking place at Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek in Chester, the screening includes a talk by and a question and answer session with Michael Good, author of The Search For Major Plagge, the book that formed the basis for this film.

While the title sounds like a contradiction in terms, it fits this story about the only German officer recognized as a Righteous Gentile for saving Jews in the HKP slave labor camp in Vilnius, Poland. The film is the ultimate result of a family trip to Lithuania by Durham resident and Middletown physician, Dr. Michael Good. The child of Lithuanian Holocaust survivors, Good knew how fortunate his family was to be among the few surviving Jews from Vilnius. He travelled to Vilnius with his parents, wife and children to see the place of his heritage and meet some of those responsible for their survival, including two Lithuanian families who sheltered his father and saved his life. For her part, his mother told the story of Major Plagge, the German commandant at the work camp to which her family was sent, and the man who saved her family’s life. Who was Major Plagge? Michael Good returned from his trip determined to find out.

Years of research and collaboration with survivors of the Vilnius work camp, German archivists, historians and German Army experts followed, and the first result was Good’s 2005 book, The Search for Major Plagge: The Nazi Who Saved Jews. The book finished, he began working on a documentary film.

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