The United Kingdom: Captain Francis (Frank) Foley
The United Kingdom: Captain Francis (Frank) Foley
"We in this office are the daily witnesses of the sufferings of old and broken people under orders to leave this country. They beseech us to join their children in Palestine"- Captain Francis Foley, May 26, 1939
The persecution of Jews in Germany drove many to seek refuge in the United Kingdom and British Mandatory Palestine. By 1936, British authorities began to restrict entry to the Mandate in response to the Arab revolt, and in 1939 – when the need to leave Germany had become most urgent – the British Government introduced the White Paper, all but ceasing legal Jewish entry into the Mandate. In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, Britain permitted the entry of nearly 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children, most of them Jewish, into the United Kingdom – a rescue operation known as the Kindertransport. Some 50,000 Jewish refugees reached the UK between 1933-1939, and 53,000 were admitted into the Mandate territories.
Captain Francis (Frank) Foley, a veteran of World War I, served in the British Intelligence Service MI6 and was stationed in Berlin from 1922 to 1939 as Passport Control Officer at the British Embassy. Beginning in 1935, an ever-growing number of Jews appealed to his office in order to obtain immigration visas to British Mandatory Palestine, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the British Empire. Defying the Foreign Office, Foley bent the rules to issue visas even to people who did not meet Britain’s stiff conditions for entry. During the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, Foley sheltered Jews overnight in his apartment, including Leo Baeck, Chairman of the Association of German Rabbis. When the war broke out and Foley departed Germany, he left behind a thick wad of already approved visas for distribution to people in need.
Francis Foley was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1999.
The United Kingdom: Captain Francis (Frank) Foley
The United Kingdom: Captain Francis (Frank) Foley
"We in this office are the daily witnesses of the sufferings of old and broken people under orders to leave this country. They beseech us to join their children in Palestine"- Captain Francis Foley, May 26, 1939
The persecution of Jews in Germany drove many to seek refuge in the United Kingdom and British Mandatory Palestine. By 1936, British authorities began to restrict entry to the Mandate in response to the Arab revolt, and in 1939 – when the need to leave Germany had become most urgent – the British Government introduced the White Paper, all but ceasing legal Jewish entry into the Mandate. In the wake of the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, Britain permitted the entry of nearly 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children, most of them Jewish, into the United Kingdom – a rescue operation known as the Kindertransport. Some 50,000 Jewish refugees reached the UK between 1933-1939, and 53,000 were admitted into the Mandate territories.
Captain Francis (Frank) Foley, a veteran of World War I, served in the British Intelligence Service MI6 and was stationed in Berlin from 1922 to 1939 as Passport Control Officer at the British Embassy. Beginning in 1935, an ever-growing number of Jews appealed to his office in order to obtain immigration visas to British Mandatory Palestine, the United Kingdom, and other parts of the British Empire. Defying the Foreign Office, Foley bent the rules to issue visas even to people who did not meet Britain’s stiff conditions for entry. During the Kristallnacht pogrom in November 1938, Foley sheltered Jews overnight in his apartment, including Leo Baeck, Chairman of the Association of German Rabbis. When the war broke out and Foley departed Germany, he left behind a thick wad of already approved visas for distribution to people in need.
Francis Foley was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1999.