Honoring British Righteous Among the Nations in Moscow

On Thursday Oct. 10 at 5 p.m. MSK (3 p.m. in London, 10 a.m. in New York) the Russian Jewish Congress together with the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Moscow and the British Holocaust Educational Trust are holding an online event dedicated to British citizens who have been given the title Righteous Among the Nations.

This is an honorific conferred by Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel, to non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. Twenty two British citizens have been given this honorary title.

One of the people honored today is Major Francis “Frank” Edward Foley, a British Secret Intelligence Service officer who worked as a passport control officer for the British embassy in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. In that role he helped thousands of Jews leave Nazi Germany, stamping passports and issuing visas. But he also helped Jews get forged passports and hid them in his home before their departure.

Foley, who died in 1958, was given the title of Righteous Among the Nations posthumously in 1999.  He is also recognized as a British Hero of the Holocaust.

The event is part of an ongoing project on the Righteous of the Nations begun by the Russian Jewish Congress in 2015.  

Speakers and participants include Yuri Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress; Deborah Bronnert CMG, the British Ambassador to Russia; Keren Cohen Gat, Minister and Deputy to the Head of the Israeli Diplomatic Mission to Russia; Karen Pollock MBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust; and Ian Austin, a member of the House of Lords. A descendant of Major Foley, Steven Higgs, and the son of a man saved by Foley, Manfred Goldberg, will also attend.

It will be led by Ilya Altman, the co-chair of the Holocaust Center and advisor to the president of the Russian Jewish Congress.

The event will be conducted in Russian and English with simultaneous interpretation.

You can watch the ceremony live today on the Russian Jewish Congress Facebook page or YouTube page. 

Questions may be sent ahead of time here.