Foley: the Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews - Softcover

Smith, Michael

4.09

93 ratings by Goodreads

9780340718513: Foley: the Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews

Softcover

ISBN 10: 034071851X ISBN 13: 9780340718513

Publisher: Coronet, 1999

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Frank Foley worked as Passport Control Officer in Berlin during the war and helped thousands of Jews to escape from Germany. At the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann he was described as a 'Scarlet Pimpernel', risking his own life to save Jews threatened with death by the Nazis. In fact, his post at the Passport Office was a front for his real role as MI6 head of station. Despite having no diplomatic immunity and being liable to arrest at any time, he went into the concentration camps to get Jews out, he hid them in his home and helped them to get forged passports. One Jewish aid worker estimated that he saved 'tens of thousands' of people from the Holocaust.

Michael Smith has researched and vividly written one of the greatest unknown heroic stories of the Second World War.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

The terrible tale of the Holocaust is mitigated in some tiny part by a few stories of grace and heroism; of these moments of reprieve, the story of Oscar Schindler is perhaps the best known. The inaction of foreign bureaucracies scared of offending Germany and precipitating conflict is well-known; less famous are the details of how many German Jews were procured exit visas and did survive.

Frank Foley was the British passport officer in Berlin, and would have none of the nonsense of his superiors; he endlessly bent the rules and found pretexts for getting people out. This was all the more remarkable because he was also running a major intelligence operation, acquiring details of most of Germany's military research and development that were eventually crucial to Allied victory. The double bluff whereby he concealed his spying operations through known and active hostility to the regime was both ingenious and let him do what he was morally drawn to. Foley also had a crucial role in frustrating various schemes of the Stalinist Comintern, acquiring double agents who, for example, prevented a pro-Russian coup in Brazil. Foley-The Spy Who Saved 10,000 Jews is a fascinating story, efficiently rather than memorably told.--Roz Kavaney

Review:

one of the greatest untold stories of heroism and humanity from the Second World War (Birmingham Evening Mail)

... this book rightly appeals for Foley's courage to be officially recognised by Israel (Tom Bower in the Daily Mail)

... appeals for his courage to be officially recognised by Israel (Tom Bower in the Daily Mail)

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.