Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Prince William Unveils Statue Of Spy Who Saved Jews From Holocaust

(JTA) — Britain’s Prince William unveiled a statue of Frank Foley, a British spy who helped save thousands of Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The Duke of Cambridge revealed the statue last week in Stourbridge, in the West Midlands county of England. Foley died there in 1958.

Before the unveiling ceremony, Michael Mamelok, one of the survivors who fled Berlin due to the efforts of Foley, a major from the MI6 foreign intelligence agency, told the prince his story.

“It’s an honor for [Prince William] to come here and unveil Foley’s statue, and I’m delighted to be here to view that,” Mamelok told the Press Association.

“I’m here to honor this great man who saved my life,” he continued. “My daughter wouldn’t be here today — there have been 17 children directly descended from me which wouldn’t be here.”

The sculpture at Stourbridge’s Mary Stevens Park features a bronze image of Foley sitting on a bench alongside a briefcase. M16 has said Foley was so unassuming and quiet that many of the people he saved never knew what he had done for them.

As director of the British passport office in Berlin during the 1930s, Foley freely handed out visas to Jews in Germany and sheltered several in his home.

Far from his public role as a gray paper-pusher, he served as the Berlin station chief for British intelligence until the outbreak of World War II.

Foley used his power and influence as British passport control officer in Berlin — a cover for his intelligence work — to help German Jews immigrate to Britain and its colonies, including pre-state Israel. He was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations – a non-Jew who risked his life to save Jews during the Holocaust – by Israel in 1999.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.