President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has posthumously awarded the Order of "Dustlik" ("Friendship") to British couple John and Phyllis Emily Le Breton for saving the life of Uzbek soldier Boqijon Akramov during World War II.
According to the presidential decree, the couple sheltered Boqijon Akramov — who had managed to escape from a Nazi concentration camp on the island of Jersey — in their home, "despite grave risk to their own lives."
The decree highlights their "extraordinary courage and humanity displayed under conditions of extreme danger," as well as their "exceptional contribution to advancing the ideals of peace, friendship, and brotherhood among peoples."
The couple's story was covered by the BBC in 2022. The report noted that they called the man they had rescued "Tom." John and Phyllis's granddaughter, Carolyn Horne, recalled that he was like a member of the family — some relatives even referred to him affectionately as their "favourite uncle."
John and Phyllis once said of Akramov: "We trusted this man — he was the kind of person you could trust."
"The children adored him, and once he began to understand a little English, he would read them fairy tales," Carolyn Horne recalled.
She also shared that Akramov had been shown several escape routes and hidden doors he could use to slip away should the Nazis ever come to the house.
After the war, he is believed to have moved to the neighboring island of Guernsey, after which all contact was lost.
Akramov kept a diary, and copies of its pages were passed on to Jersey Heritage — the organization dedicated to preserving the heritage of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. Jersey is a Crown dependency of the British Crown, but is not part of the United Kingdom.
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