Robert Rinder and mother Angela Cohen made MBEs on same day

Robert Rinder and his mother Angela Cohen appeared in BBC One series My Family, The Holocaust and Me

TV judge Robert Rinder has said being made an MBE on the same day as his mother has made the experience "all the richer and frankly the more beautiful".

They have both been recognised for services to Holocaust education.

Rinder explored Jewish families' stories in last year's BBC One series My Family, The Holocaust and Me, and he speaks in schools alongside survivors.

His mother Angela Cohen is head of the '45 Aid Society, a charity set up in 1963 by Holocaust survivors.

The society preservers the stories of more than 700 Jewish children who were brought to the UK after the end of World War Two.

Robert Rinder said the awards were a "double honour"

Rinder is a barrister and former Strictly contestant as well as the host of Judge Rinder.

Speaking about his citation in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, he said: "I have, just like everybody I love professionally and trust in my life, a kind of nuclear-powered sense of imposter syndrome.

"I have to say it has been dialled up even more in receiving this honour, which really means the world to me.

"As you probably know, it is made all the richer and frankly the more beautiful because my mum is getting one on the same day."

• Honours for heroes of Covid vaccine programme

• Queen honours TV's Arlene Phillips and Prue Leith

• Sterling becomes MBE in birthday honours

He said the honour "might do even more to persuade people that they need to hear the story of the Holocaust, the survivors and those who perished."

The Holocaust took place "in the cradle of democracy, the most advanced place in the world", he said, adding that "the story I will always continue to tell is that here you had people complacent that they lived in safety, when all you needed was the wrong man in the right place at the wrong time".

He also spoke of "the dark alchemy that descended into the depravity of Auschwitz and so many other places, including where my own family were murdered".

• Last surviving Auschwitz liberator dies aged 98

• ‘He wrote to us as he waited for the train to Auschwitz’

• How my grandad survived the Holocaust

He said that, although the MBEs were a "double honour", they would really put "even more wind in the sails of this discussion, for people to feel that telling the story of the Holocaust, knowing about it, is their personal responsibility".

He added: "To defend against tyranny, to defend against hate, to defend against racism of all kinds - that's why it is such a gift."