A Suffolk boarding school held a special service on Tuesday to commemorate an outstanding former pupil who saved the lives of nearly 52,000 Jews during the Second World War.

Prince Constantin Karadja of Romania, who attended Framlingham College from 1906-1908, was a consul-general for his country in Berlin in the early years of the war and an official in the Romanian Foreign Ministry from 1941-44.

Despite opposition from within his own government, he issued papers to protect Jews of Romanian nationality abroad who would have otherwise fallen into the hands of the Nazis.

In 2005, he was posthumously honoured by Yad Vashem as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” in Jerusalem.

The prince, who credited the humanistic influence of his English education, went on to Cambridge and then specialise in international law in London. He died in 1950.

During the memorial service in the college chapel, Rabbi Andrew Goldstein, from Northwood and Liberal Pinner Synagogue, recited kaddish.