Mel Gibson to Produce Tv Series Based on Holocaust

Mel Gibson, whose controversial film The Passion of the Christ was condemned in some quarters as being anti-semitic and whose father has been accused of being a Holocaust denier, is working on a mini-series set against the backdrop of the Holocaust.

Gibson's Con Artist production company is developing Flory for the ABC television network. It is based on the true-life love story of a Dutch Jew named Flory van Beek who lost several relatives in concentration camps but was sheltered from the Nazis by her Catholic boyfriend.

The star of Braveheart and the Mad Max series has been criticised for failing to disassociate himself clearly enough from the views of his father, Hutton Gibson, who has said the accounts of the Holocaust were mostly "fiction" and described Holocaust museums as a "gimmick to collect money".

"For him [Mel Gibson] to be associated with this movie is cause for concern," Rafael Medoff, the author of an annual study of Holocaust denial, told the Associated Press. "He needs to come clean that he repudiates Holocaust denial"

Based on Ms van Beek's memoirs, Flory tells the story of how she survived the sinking of a ship as she tried to flee Nazi Germany for Chile, and three years of hiding during the German occupation of the Netherlands.

Ms van Beek, who is in her early 80s and lives in Newport Beach, California, told the New York Times she had not seen The Passion of the Christ because it seemed "too traumatic". "All I know is he's a staunch Catholic, and the people who saved our lives are Catholic."