Following archaeological work done at the HKP 562 site in 2017, a documentary about Plagge and the camp, The Good Nazi, premiered in Vilnius the following year. It appears that Plagge now decides that it is his duty to save as many of the local people from extermination as possible, and according to the author's parents, manages to save at least 500 lives!

Later, he would come to say ”I didn’t pay any party contribution…I had come to clear opposition to the nationalist socialist methods of violence”. On 1 September, about 300 of Plagge's workers were seized by the SS for transportation to the Klooga concentration camp.The risk for Plagge was that he would be accused of favouring Jews, and this was really a very serious offence.

Good decides that the saintly Major Plagge must be commemorated, but is hindered by the fact, that none of the people who honor the Major's memory, even know his first name!He fought as a lieutenant in World War I on the Western Front, participating in the battles of the Somme, Verdun, and Flanders. Good's son, Michael, decided to investigate the story of Plagge, but he had trouble locating him because survivors knew him only as "Major Plagge" and did not know his full name or place of birth. Of a pre-war Jewish population in Vilnius, only 2,000 survived, of which the largest single group, were saved by Plagge. Dr Good tracked down survivors and documents to put together a case for Yad Vashem to recognise Plagge's heroism. However, they needed to know when the camp would be liquidated so they could implement their plans to escape or hide.

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. In the aftermath of the April 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising and an increase in Soviet partisan activity, Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, decided to liquidate all Nazi ghettos, regardless of the slave labor they provided to the Wehrmacht's war effort. Jewish men, women, and children, including Good’s mother, by refusing to follow protocol and outwitting his superiors.Major Plagge stood out from other Nazi's and that was the problem that the Allies never confronted head on. He also insisted that the men be allowed to bring their wives and children, saying it would be good for morale and pro duction.