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HISTORY-HOLOCAUST-JEWS
Dutch offer first apology for WWII persecution of Jews
THE HAGUE, Jan 26, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Sunday
made the Netherlands’ first government apology for the war-time persecution
of Jews.
“Now the last survivors are still with us, I apologise today in the name
of the government for what the authorities did at that time,” Rutte said.
He was giving an address in Amsterdam in memory of victims of the
Holocaust on the eve of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi
death camp at Auschwitz.
Only 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands survived
World War II, but no government apology has been offered for the role the
authorities played.
The question of an apology was raised in 2012 when Rutte was also prime
minister, but he said not enough information was available about government
action during the war and that there was “not broad enough support” for an
official apology.
In 2000, then prime minister Wim Kok apologised for the “icy welcome” Nazi
camp survivors received on their return to the Netherlands, which the Nazis
occupied from 1940-1945.
“Our government institutions did not act as guardians of justice and
security,” Rutte said Sunday.
“Too many civil servants carried out the orders of the occupiers.
“The bitter consequences of the drawing up of registers (of Jews) and of
the expulsions have not been adequately recognised, nor recognised in time”
Rutte added.
“On the whole, it was too little too late. Too little protection. Too
little help. Too little recognition.”
“Seventy-five years after Auschwitz, antisemitism is still amongst us.
That’s exactly whey we fully fully recognise what happened and say it out
loud,” Rutte said.
Holocaust survivors will gather in Auschwitz on Monday to mark 75 years
since Soviet troops liberated the camp, while world leaders held a sombre
remembrance ceremony in Jerusalem last Thursday.
More than 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, were killed at Auschwitz-
Birkenau.
BSS/AFP/BZC/2025HRS