Author to honour unsung war hero

Two MPs have organised the first memorial lecture in honour of the Black Country's Holocaust hero Frank Foley.

A plaque honouring Mr Foley and other British diplomats was unveiled in London last night. Thousands of Jews were saved from the gas chambers of Nazi Germany by Mr Foley.

A British spy who was a UK passport officer in Berlin before the Second World War, he and his wife Kay settled in Stourbridge after the conflict. He died in 1958. It was many years before his heroism came to light, and it is hoped the lecture will be an annual event.

Ian Austin, MP for Dudley North, and Stourbridge MP Lynda Waltho have organised next Friday's lecture at Stourbridge College, marking the 50th anniversary of Mr Foley's death.

The speaker will be writer Michael Smith, a former army intelligence officer and author of Foley: The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews.

Mr Smith said today that Frank Foley saved many more Jews than Oskar Schindler, who is immortalised in the film Schindler's List, but had little acclaim.

"He was a very, very able man who never got the recognition he should have done," he said.

Mr Foley and other British diplomats who helped victims of Nazi persecution have been commemorated by a plaque unveiled yesterday at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by Foreign Secretary David Miliband.

Historian Sir Martin Gilbert said at the unveiling: "It is important to recognise individual bravery."