FOREIGN AND
COMMONWEALTH OFFICE News Release issued by COI News Distribution
Service. 19 November 2008
British diplomats
who helped Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution are to be
commemorated by a plaque in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The plaque will be unveiled by the Foreign Secretary David
Miliband on 20 November 2008.
The Foreign Secretary said:
"This plaque honours those British diplomats who helped Jews
and other victims of Nazi persecution during one of Europe's
darkest hours. Some of these individuals are well known to us:
Frank Foley, for example, the Passport Control Officer and Secret
Intelligence Service Head of Station in Berlin, who visited
concentration camps to get Jews out and hid others in his home; or
Robert Smallbones, our Consul-General in Frankfurt, who worked 18
hour days issuing visas on his own authority in the aftermath of
the Kristallnacht pogrom. Others who also helped may have escaped
history's limelight, but all their efforts deserve to be remembered."
Sir Sigmund Sternberg said:
"The brave British diplomats, known and unknown, who
displayed their concern for the suffering of Jews and other
victims of Nazism, are properly entitled to the recognition and
appreciation which we accord them with the unveiling of this
plaque at the heart of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I am
grateful for the understanding and support offered by the FCO, led
by the Foreign Secretary, in bringing this commemorative project
to fruition. It will forever be a reminder of the fact that, even
in the most terrible of circumstances, individuals of good
conscience can make a contribution to the safeguarding of humanity."
Sir Martin Gilbert said:
"When the Holocaust is finally beyond living memory, the
desire will remain to remember and to honour those who extended a
helping hand. It is important to recognise individual bravery.
It is also important to provide a reminder that human beings can,
in situations where civilized values are being undermined, find
the strength of character and purpose to resist the evil impulses
of the age, and to rescue the victims of barbarity."
Notes for Editors:
1. The guiding force behind the plaque has been the interfaith
campaigner Sir Sigmund Sternberg. FCO Historians have worked
alongside Sir Sigmund's Three Faiths Forum and the renowned
Holocaust historian Sir Martin Gilbert to bring the project to fruition.
2. The plaque, a bronze relief showing hands pulling apart barbed
wire, is the work of the prominent sculptor Philip Jackson FRBS,
who has undertaken numerous public and private commissions. The
sculpture has been privately funded through donations made to the
Three Faiths Forum. The inscription on the plaque reads
To commemorate those British diplomats who by their personal
endeavours helped to rescue victims of Nazi oppression.
3. Many of those who were helped, or whose close relatives were
helped, by British diplomats will be attending the unveiling of
the plaque on 20 November
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