In July 1944, fleeing the re-occupation of Latvia by the Soviet Union, the Plakans family went into exile, living out the rest of WWII in Reichenberg in the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia.
After the war, the family moved farther west, spending the next six years in displaced persons’ (DP) camps in the American occupation zone in Germany.
Andrejs Plakans graduated from J.P. McCaskey High School (1959), received a B.A.
[2] From 1988 till 1990 Andrejs Plakans served as president of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.
[4] Andrejs Plakans was awarded foreign membership status by the Latvian Academy of Sciences (1990), an honorary Ph.D. from Umeå University in Sweden (1999),[2] and the Order of the Three Stars, the highest civilian award for meritorious service to Latvia (2017).