A rabbi who has led more than 150 study missions to Auschwitz has received a Polish knighthood for his services to Holocaust education and dialogue between Jews and Poles.

Rabbi Barry Marcus was presented with the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit by the Polish Ambassador, Witold Sobkow, in London.

Since taking his first group nearly 20 years ago, he has accompanied more than 25,000 students and teachers on visits to the Nazi death camp site. Only the day before the presentation, Rabbi Marcus had been at Auschwitz with a party of 220 students and teachers from Newcastle.

Mr Sobkow also praised his efforts towards dialogue, in particular cultural and musical events to promote Polish-Jewish reconciliation at his synagogue, the Central in London's West End. He was "a great friend of Poland. Rabbi Marcus thinks beyond borders," the ambassador said.

Rabbi Marcus - whose family came from Poland - was "humbled by this acknowledgement".

While Jews sought better understanding from others, they ought to be "a little more magnanimous" in recognising that more Poles had been declared Righteous among the Nations for saving Jews during the Holocaust than members of any other nation.

Poles had also been victims of the Nazis. "We do not have a monopoly on pain and tragedy."

The ambassador, he added, was "a genuine and true friend of us".