The Inaugural Frank Foley Lecture, 28 November 2008

Ian Austin and Linda Waltho, the two MPs whose West Midlands constituencies cover the area where Frank Foley lived until his death in 1958, have set up the annual Frank Foley lecture. If you don't know who Frank Foley was, then you should and you will if you read this post. This is the Inaugural Frank Foley Lecture, which I gave at Stourbridge last Friday.

ON Friday June 19th, 1959, a small group of people gathered on the edge of a windswept forest near Kibbutz Harel, just outside Jerusalem. A grove of trees had been planted there to commemorate a remarkable Englishman. Each of the more than 2,000 pines had been paid for by someone he saved from Hitler's concentration camps. Contributions for more trees were coming in every day. The speakers at the ceremony included some of the most eminent members of the Jewish community in pre-war Berlin. Benno Cohn, chairman of the Zionist Organisation of Germany, reminded those present that they had gathered to pay tribute to a British official who had saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. "He was the Pimpernel of the Jews," Cohn said. "Day and night he was at the disposal of those who sought help. In those dark years, he restored to many of us our faith in humanity." A memorial stone place in front of the grave read simply: "Major Francis Edward Foley, England, Memorial Grove."

I first came across Frank Foley while researching a history of Britain’s spies. I was told about an MI6 officer whose brilliant ability as a spy was still held up as an example to new recruits, but whose most important claim to fame was that he had helped thousands of Jews to escape from Nazi Germany. One former MI6 officer told me Foley was not just a brilliant spy, he was "a near saint". "He was a quite outstanding character," the MI6 man said. "Schindler pales into insignificance alongside his work on getting Jews out of Germany. He was a very, very able man, who I don't think ever got the recognition he should have done."

It was an impressive testimonial. But if Foley had done so much to help the Jews why wasn't he better known? I asked Yad Vashem - the Holocaust Memorial Centre in Israel - if Foley had ever been considered for the distinction of Righteous Among Nations, an accolade accorded to a number of Gentiles - most notably Oskar Schindler - who helped to rescue Jews from the clutches of the Nazis. They told me they had heard of Foley but there was no evidence to back up the claims. So he could not be recognised. But if the story were true shouldn’t it be told, shouldn’t Foley be recognised for what he had done? I decided that I would somehow find the evidence that, one way or the other, would answer the question. Was Frank Foley really Britain's Schindler?

Given the response from Yad Vashem - I was somewhat surprised when a copy of a document I had requested from the museum's archives arrived in the post. It was the memoirs of a Jewish aid worker called Hubert Pollack and it described in some detail how Foley had saved "tens of thousands" of Jews from the Holocaust. It was only the first of many pieces of evidence that I found - many of them in Israeli archives, and indeed placed there by some of the most senior members of Germany's pre-war Jewish community - all of them backing up Foley's claim to be regarded as Righteous Among Nations.

Frank Foley was born on November 24th, 1884 in Highbridge. His mother was a devout Catholic and his earliest ambition was to become a priest, indeed he spent three years training to be a priest before deciding instead on an academic career. During the First World War he became an intelligence officer and at the end of the war, he was recruited to work for the secret intelligence service, what we now know as MI6, taking charge of its station in Berlin. His cover was head of the British Passport Control Office, which issued visas to anyone wishing to go anywhere controlled by the British, a useful way of keeping watch on foreign spies trying to infiltrate the Empire. But when Hitler was elected Chancellor in January 1933, he introduced emergency legislation allowing his political opponents to be taken into so-called 'protective custody' without the need for a warrant or a trial. On Thursday March 9th, 1933, the first concentration camp opened at Dachau, near Munich. Within a month, two more had been built, at Esterwegen and Sachsenhausen. Increasingly, the inmates of these camps were not just political prisoners, but 'non-Aryans' -the gypsies and in particular the Jews.

Many of those members of the Jewish community who could afford to leave began to do so. Some headed for neighbouring countries such as France and Holland, believing that soon the tide would turn and it would be safe to go home. Others looked for more permanent sanctuary in the Jewish homeland. Palestine was administered by Britain under mandate from the League of Nations. The Mandate specifically urged the British to assist the Jews to go there. But a series of Arab revolts led to strict limits on the number of Jews allowed in. Those German Jews hoping to flee the Nazis therefore needed visas which had to be obtained from the British Passport Control Office in Berlin.

Within days of the new concentration camps opening, Foley's office was besieged by Jews trying to leave and he was telling his bosses in London that he was overwhelmed with applications from Jews who wanted to go to Palestine, to England, to anywhere in the British Empire. This is how Benno Cohn, Chairman of the Zionist Organisation of Germany, described Foley's reaction. "There were British envoys in posts in Berlin at that time who carried out London's policy to the letter, who were impervious to humanitarian considerations and who more often worked for the greater good of the Nazi regime in friendly cooperation with its ministers. One man stood out above all others. Captain Foley took advantage of his powers in so broadminded a way that many who under a stricter interpretation of orders would probably have been refused, were issued with the coveted visas to Palestine. To many who had to deal with him, he appeared almost as a saint."

Foley was not simply a civil servant doing what he could to help. Foley was a British spy, running agents into the heart of the Nazi war machine. He had no diplomatic immunity. He could have been arrested at any time. Helping the Jews was not an activity designed to curry favour with either the Nazis or indeed his bosses in London, who were determined to keep the number of Jews emigrating to Palestine to a bare minimum. Foley was not simply "broadminded" in his interpretation of the rules, he blatantly ignored them in order to allow Jews to leave the country.

The Nazis were determined to drive the Jews out of all walks of German society, to make life as difficult for them as possible. Jewish businesses were sold off to Nazis at knock-down prices, often at the point of a gun. Jewish directors and managers were dismissed. No area of German society was to be tainted by the Jew. Business; the judiciary; the medical and dental professions; the universities and the schools; the media; even the arts, were all to be cleansed of the Jew. This is Frank Foley himself in a dispatch to London in 1935 just two years after the Nazis came to power and with the introduction of the Final Solution still six years away. "No Jewish dentist may now be admitted as a panel dentist. No Jewish lawyer may now be admitted as a professional legal adviser. No apprentice may be entered to the publishing trade unless of Aryan origin. Almost all Jewish artists have been forbidden from exercising their calling. For the Jewish youth, the future holds out no prospects in Germany and the greater part will be forced to emigrate. The liberal professions are now completely closed to them.”

One of the leading Jewish artists who received a letter from the so-called Chamber of Culture banning him from working was Wolfgang Meyer-Michael. He and his family decided that they must try to get to Palestine. The massive influx of Jews in the immediate wake of Hitler's appointment as Chancellor had sparked riots among the Arabs and the British were sticking to very strict limits on the number of visas issued. They were available to dependents of those already living in Palestine and to those who had definite offers of jobs. But the jobs available there were almost exclusively agricultural or industrial while most German Jews were members of the professional and business classes, or like Meyer-Michael, employed in cultural occupations. For them the only option was a Capitalist Visa available to anyone who could pay 1,000 pounds into a bank in Palestine. The Meyer-Michaels did not have any way of getting money into a bank in Palestine, so legally Foley could not give them a visa. But he suggested Meyer-Michael get someone outside Germany to write a letter promising the money and he would accept it as a guarantee. One of Meyer-Michael's relatives who lived in Holland drew up two documents. In one, he promised to lend Meyer-Michael 1,000 pounds. In a second, Meyer-Michael declared the first document invalid and promised never to use it. It was a false guarantee, Meyer-Michael said. "Mr Foley knew that as well as I. But he said enthusiastically that this was marvellous and he would give me the visa immediately. Within half an hour, I had the precious document in my hands. I shall be forever grateful to this truly good man."

In a dispatch back to London, Foley lobbied for a change to the rules. "The position of the Jew in Germany, even if he possesses capital, is a desperate one," Foley said. "He is being ruined economically and at the same time he is unable to emigrate as he cannot obtain the release of even a moderate proportion of his capital to enable him to do so.”

Berthold Kahn, a Jewish lawyer in Zweibruecken, south-west Germany, had served in the German army during the First World War winning the Iron Cross. But when the Nazis came to power, the Stormtroopers mounted guard on his chambers, ordering people not to use Jewish lawyers. The stormtroopers pushed him down the steps of the law courts and his non-Jewish clients took their business elsewhere. Kahn's daughter Elsbeth came home to find him in despair. "His world had collapsed. He was sitting in an absolutely confused state, staring at his Iron Cross." Elsbeth, then just 18, applied to go to Palestine on a capitalist visa but ran into the same problems as the Meyer-Michaels. She had the money in marks but the German bank would not transfer it to Palestine. It might be another five years before the money could be transferred over. Officials at the Zionist Organisation asked Foley for help. He gave her a capitalist visa, despite the fact that she did not have the necessary 1,000 pounds and on August the 15th, 1935, she sailed for Palestine with just ten marks in her hand. Elsbeth's sister Hilde emigrated to America in 1938 and a year later her father and mother were issued with a transit visa to France, from where they joined Hilde in New York. Berthold Kahn's elder brother Paul was murdered in 1942 in the Oranienburg concentration camp. His younger brother Hermann, who was married to a non-Jewish woman, was left alone until 1943 when she died and he was taken to Auschwitz and gassed. Elsbeth's aunts Clara and Emma were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Clara died of starvation in 1944. Only Emma remained alive to be liberated in 1945.

In November 1938, a young Jew, unable to take the persecution of his family, walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot a diplomat dead. The assassination sparked off what was to become known as Kristallnacht. Across Germany it became open season on the Jews. Synagogues were set on fire or blown up. Jewish shops were wrecked and Jews were beaten up in the street.

Jewish men were dragged out of their homes and taken to the nearest concentration camp. Many of the leading Jews were forced to go on the run. Foley now embarked on a dangerous path, hiding a number of Jews in his home, including Leo Baeck, chairman of the Association of German Rabbis. Given the concern in London that Frank might be arrested as a spy at any minute, it was a brave thing to do. At considerable risk to himself, Frank allowed Baeck to use his home to brief selected foreign journalists on what was happening to the Jews. Meanwhile, Foley's offices on the Tiergartenstrasse were transformed into a place of refuge for those seeking protection from the Gestapo.

This is Benno Cohen, Chairman of the German Zionist Organisation: "Thirty-two thousand men were held in concentration camps in those weeks and their wives besieged Capt Foley in order to effect the liberation of their husbands from the camps. At that time it was a question of life and death for many thousands. In those days, he revealed himself in all his humanity. Day and night he was at the disposal of those who sought help. He issued visas of all kinds on a large scale and thereby assisted in the liberation of many thousands from the concentration camps."

Cohn said he and his fellow aid workers frequently asked themselves why Foley was prepared to lay his life and career on the line to help them. "Above all else, Foley was humane," Cohn said. "In those dark days in Germany, to encounter a human being was no common occurrence. "He told us that he was acting as a Christian. He wanted to show us how little the Christians who were then in power in Germany had to do with real Christianity. He detested the Nazis and looked on their political system - as he once told me - as the rule of Satan upon earth. He regarded himself as duty bound to assist the victims of their misdeeds."

Frequently, Foley would go into the concentration camps to save Jews from their executioners. Gunter Powitzer was arrested at the beginning of 1937 after getting his non-Jewish girlfriend pregnant. Powitzer was jailed for 18 months for "race defilement", during which time the couple's son Walter was born. Gunter's brother, who had successfully emigrated to Palestine, set about trying to get him out. Eventually, he contacted Foley. But by now Gunter was in Sachsenhausen camp, north of Berlin. One day, he was told he had a visitor. An SS guard threw a greatcoat over him to cover up all his wounds. He led Gunter into the camp office where a small owlish looking man with glasses was sat behind the desk. "My name is Foley," he said in English. "I am from the British passport office in Berlin. Tomorrow you'll be free and there are papers at the consulate for you to travel to Palestine. Don't worry about your child, he is also registered on the papers. We have taken care of everything." The next day, someone was waiting at the camp gates to pick Powitzer up and take him to collect his young son. A few days later, they were on their way to Palestine.

Foley got out of Berlin on the eve of the German invasion of Poland. At the end of the war, he returned to Berlin to hunt down the Nazis who had led the persecution of the Jews. He retired from MI6 in 1949 and on Thursday May 8th, 1958, at the age of 73, died of a heart attack at his home in Stourbridge. Foley's passing went almost unnoticed in Britain. But as news of his death reached Israel, tributes began to pour in. The list of those who lined up to pay tribute to Foley reads like a Who's Who of the Jewish community in pre-war Berlin. They included: Siegfried Moses, and Hans Friedenthal former Presidents of the German Zionist Organisation; Benno Cohn, the organisation's chairman; and Werner Senator, the Jewish Agency's representative in Berlin. Hubert Pollack, a Jewish social worker from Berlin, organised a special fund to plant the grove of trees in Foley's memory just outside Jerusalem. Several thousand trees were planted there, each of them paid for by someone Foley saved.

A year later, a team of Mossad officers staged a daring raid on Argentina to kidnap Adolf Eichmann, taking him back to Israel to stand trial for his part in the Final Solution. The person they chose to ensure they had the right man was Benno Cohn. When Eichmann went on trial in April 1962. Cohn described the reign of terror that followed Kristallnacht and how few people had reached out to help the Jews. "There was one man who stood out above all others like a beacon," Cohn said. "Captain Foley, the British Passport Officer in Berlin, a man who in my opinion was one of the greatest among the nations of the World. He was the pimpernel of the Jews. He brought his influence to bear to help us. It was possible to bring a great number of people to Israel through the help of this most wonderful person. He rescued thousands of Jews from the jaws of death."

On October 24th 1999, as a direct result of the evidence collected for Foley’s biography, Yad Vashem made Foley Righteous Among Nations. Announcing the award, Yad Vashem said it was impossible to tell how many Jews Foley had saved. The closest we can get is in Hubert Pollack's estimate of "tens of thousands". Yet even that extraordinary figure cannot adequately describe the effect of Foley's actions. In a letter to the Jerusalem Post welcoming the decision to make him a Righteous Gentile, one of those helped by Foley, wrote: "I myself have five children and 18 grandchildren, none of whom would ever have seen the light of day had I not lived. There must be countless men, women and children who would never have been born had not Foley saved their parents or grandparents. May God bless his memory."