The Holocaust Educational Trust has started a campaign to secure a posthumous honour for British diplomat and spy Frank Foley.
Mr Foley was a passport officer in the British consulate in Berlin’s Tiergarten in the 1930s and has been credited with saving the lives of as many as 10,000 Jews by issuing visas to concentration camp inmates and many others that enabled them to flee Germany.
But while Oskar Schindler’s humanitarian exploits were made famous by Thomas Keneally’s book, Mr Foley’s story remained untold. One reason suggested was that many of those saved by him fled to Palestine and were reluctant to tell their stories for fear of being deported.
He has been recognised as one of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations but now HET chief executive Karen Pollock has written to Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband to change the law that prohibits posthumous honours. A petition has also been started on the 10 Downing Street website for Mr Foley and others who risked their lives to save Jews during the Shoah.
