Park statue plan to honour 'Stourbridge Schindler' Frank Foley

Frank Foley risked his life on numerous occasions to save Jews in Hitler's Germany when he was a British spy in 1930s Berlin.

Council chiefs are planning a £40,000 memorial for the hero and say 'the ideal site' would be in Mary Stevens Park in Stourbridge - close to the intelligence officer's former home in Eveson Road and the cemetery where he is buried.

Dudley borough MPs Ian Austin and Margot James have been described as 'key figures' in the campaign for a statue for Major Foley.

Council leader Pete Lowe said: "Frank Foley saved the lives on thousands of during the Second World War and it's only fitting that we make sure he is remembered within our community.

"Hopefully at the meeting next week they will take due regard of his actions and our consideration to pay lasting tribute to him for generations to come.

"Future generations should remember him and his fight against fascism in the Second World War and for the lives he saved."

The placement of the statue is due to be discussed at an Ernest Stevens Trusts management committee meeting next week.

A document for the meeting states: "Ian Austin MP, and Margot James MP, who have been key figures in the campaign for a Foley statue, feel that the statue should ideally be informal, a seated figure on a bench so that local people and visitors can sit beside him.

"An ideal site would therefore seem to be within Mary Stevens Park, not far from his former residence at Eveson Road or the cemetery where he rests, for example on a suitably modified bench within the newly created 'tea garden' - a location that would also provide good security for a valuable bronze statue, as it is fenced off at night.

"On the other hand, some concerns have been expressed, at least in informal consultation with representation from the park friends, that to place the statue within the park ... might possibly be seen to eclipse the work of Ernest Stevens himself, who gave the park and building to the people of Stourbridge in memory of his wife."

Major Foley used his position working undercover as a passport control officer to help Jews escape from Nazi Germany.

He entered concentration camps such as Sachsenhausen and presented visas to the camp authorities so that Jews could be freed.

After serving in the Second World War, he retired to Stourbridge where he lived at Eveson Road in Norton until his death in 1958.

He was accorded the status Righteous Amongst the Nations by Israel in 1999, and awarded British Hero of the Holocaust posthumously in 2010.

In 2004 a plaque was erected in his honour at the British Embassy in Berlin, and last year a tree and plaque were unveiled in Mary Stevens Park.