Their efforts never matched those of Raoul Wallenberg, the young Swedish diplomat in Budapest who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews at the end of the Second World War - only to disappear after capture by the Red Army in 1945. But some British diplomats also acted bravely and honourably to save Jews from the Nazis by issuing thousands of visas and travel documents that allowed them to escape to Britain and other foreign havens. It has taken a long time for official recognition, perhaps because their actions sometimes flew in the face of government policy. But yesterday, at last, a memorial plaque in their honour was unveiled in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

There are no names on the plaque, as there is no real record of how many consuls and junior diplomats confronted the Nazis - and risked their own careers - in saving Jews from certain death. The best known is Captain Frank Foley, whose Christian compassion persuaded him to work ceaselessly in Berlin for those being persecuted around him. But at least ten other British officials, in Frankfurt, Istanbul, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia, were also involved. They deserve to be remembered. Later official obstruction by others prevented the entry of far more desperate refugees on the eve of war. They showed that the brave and the principled can always find a way around blind official rules.

Would or should diplomats do the same again? Sadly, there is no assurance that the Government would not again try to deny safe haven to minorities facing massacres and genocide around the world. The plaque reminds everyone that saving human lives deserves to be remembered long after the bungling of bureaucracy.