Helena Bonham Carter, Ephraim Mirvis Named to British Holocaust Commission

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By JTA January 27, 2014

Actress Helena Bonham Carter and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis were among those chosen for the new British Holocaust Commission.

Members of the commission, which will investigate ways to educate Britons about the Shoah, were announced Monday by Prime Minister David Cameron, the London Jewish Chronicle reported.

The commission was set to meet on Monday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, with more than 50 Holocaust survivors at a reception at the prime minister’s residence.

Cameron called on the public to provide evidence of Nazi atrocities and survivors’ artifacts to the commission through the end of May. He announced plans for the commission last September at the Holocaust Educational Trust’s 25th anniversary dinner, according to the Chronicle.

The commission’s findings are expected to be presented to the government in time for the 70th anniversary of the British liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 2015.

Bonham Carter’s grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejon, was posthumously recognized for helping to save hundreds of Jews during World War II.

“I am very honored to be asked to join this commission and do so in particular memory of those members of my family who died in the Holocaust and as an inherited responsibility to my grandfather who made a significant personal sacrifice to save hundreds of lives,” the actress said in a statement. “It is our generations’ legacy to create a living memory that will survive the survivors and forever remind future generations of the inhumanity man is capable of committing to its own kind.”

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