Campaign to honour Brit Schindler

A campaign has been launched in parliament for a posthumous knighthood to be awarded to a Stourbridge man dubbed the "British Schindler".

The town's MP Lynda Waltho wants heroic wartime spy Frank Foley to be honoured for risking his life to help thousands of Jews escape Nazi Germany while working as a passport control officer in Berlin.

Mr Foley was an MI6 agent in the German capital, but arrived in Stourbridge after the Second World War as an unsung hero.

Despite winning international recognition for his life and work, he never received a formal honour for his actions in the UK during his lifetime.

Commemorating his heroic efforts on the 50th anniversary of his death yesterday, Mrs Waltho has tabled a Commons motion calling on the Government to change existing laws.

She wants people to be able to be honoured with a knighthood after their death in the same way soldiers killed in action can be given posthumous bravery awards.

She has won cross-party support from MPs, including Warley MP John Spellar, Shropshire Tory MP Mark Pritchard and Liberal Democrat Lembit Opik.

Mrs Waltho said the move would pave the way for the recognition of other British rescuers during the Holocaust who risked their own lives, and often the lives of their families, to give life to others.

She said of Mr Foley: "He risked his life by venturing into concentration camps to help free Jewish internees, provided false papers and passports for Jewish people to leave Nazi Germany for sanctuary and even hid them in his own home until they were able to leave Germany.

"His selfless bravery saved the lives of approximately 10,000 Jewish people from certain death. We should never forget the horrors of the Holocaust and the millions that perished.

"We should also never forget its heroes."