working for Plagge were rounded up for deportation. Plagge argued with SS-Obersturmführer Rolf Neugebauer in an attempt to secure their release, but was unable to save them. In 1943, after negotiations with the SS, Plagge was able to expand his workforce from 394 Jews in July to more than 1,000 when the ghetto was liquidated in September. Labour camp 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. 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. Plagge, who had been promoted to major, secured permission from the SS to establish a Juden-KZ for HKP 562 on Subocz Street on the outskirts of Vilnius. HKP 562 was the only Wehrmacht unit allowed to retain Jewish workers. On 1 September, about 300 of Plagge's workers were seized by the SS for transportation to the Klooga concentration camp. Plagge went to the train station to argue with an SS non-commissioned officer, Bruno Kittel, who was in charge of the liquidation. Initially able to secure their release, Plagge left the Jews with subordinates, but Kittel's superior officer, SS-Obersturmführer Rolf Neugebauer, ordered them to be deported anyway. Plagge attempted to contact Neugebauer, but was unable to, and the Jews were all deported to Klooga. He then ordered his subordinates to recruit other Jewish workers to replace those who had been deported. On 16 September 1943, Plagge transported over 1,000 of his Jewish workers and their families from the Vilna Ghetto to the newly built HKP camp at 37 Subocz Street, where they remained in relative safety. Plagge saved not only skilled male workers but also their wives and children, arguing that the workers would not be motivated without their families. Less than a week later, on 23 September, the SS liquidated the Vilna Ghetto. The rest of Vilna's Jews were either executed immediately at Ponary or sent to concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe. A few Jews hid in the ruins of the ghetto; arguing that he needed more workers, Plagge brought 100 arrested Jews into HKP. Another 100 Jews were smuggled in by the resistance movement with Plagge's acquiescence, and the population peaked