David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, unveiled a plaque in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office yesterday to honour British diplomats who helped to save thousands of Jews before and during the Second World War.

After the Nazis came to power in1933, British diplomats stationed in Berlin, Vienna and other European capitals helped thousands of Jews to escape by issuing visas, passports and travel documents that allowed them to flee to Britain or other havens.

There are no names on the plaque, because there is no full record of their efforts and more names are still coming to light. But at least 11 Foreign Office officials were involved in helping Jews to flee before the frontiers were shut.

Although the Nazis officially encouraged the emigration of Jews before the outbreak of war, thousands were being rounded up and sent to concentration camps, especially after Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass – on November 9-10, 1938.

British diplomats faced considerable danger in Germany and even opposition from the Foreign Office itself in contacting Jews and helping them to flee. From 1933 to 1936 the British Embassy in Berlin issued entry visas to Britain to an average of 10,000 Jews a year, as well as Palestine certificates that permitted entry into Palestine, then under British mandate rule.

It has taken more than 70 years for official recognition of Britain’s efforts. One man, in particular, heads the list: Captain Frank Foley, the British passport control officer in Berlin, who personally issued thousands of visas.

Once, after office hours, he stamped in a visa from a British crown colony to secure the rescue of a Jewish prisoner from Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After war broke out, he continued to save Jews, issuing visas as thousands of soldiers and civilians retreated in Bordeaux in June 1940.

One of the many he saved later wrote: “I have five children and eighteen grandchildren, none of whom would ever have seen the light of day had I not lived. May God bless his memory.”

In Lithuania, Thomas Preston issued 800 legal Palestine certificates and an extra 400 beyond the Foreign Office authorisation to Jews from Poland. He also gave documents to another 100 to escape to neutral Sweden. Other diplomats in Frankfurt, Istan-bul and Czechoslovakia also helped to save Jews fleeing persecution.

The plaque will be placed on a main staircase wall within the Foreign Office building. The initiative came last year from Sir Sigmund Sternberg, the 87-year-old founder of the Three Faiths Forum, and was first reported in The Times.

The Foreign Office said last year that it could not pay for the £17,600 memorial, but readers immediately telephoned offers of support.

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