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Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema will officially apologize to the city's Jewish community for the municipality's role in persecuting Jews during World War II, Dutch media reported.
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Rounding up Jews in Amsterdam during the Holocaust
(Photo: Anonymous/Wikimedia Commons)
Amsterdam city authorities also will allocate €25 million to support and strengthen Jewish life in the Dutch capital, according to municipal sources quoted by Dutch news sites Parool and NL Times.
Halsema will deliver the formal apology on April 24, coinciding with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah). The ceremony will be held at Amsterdam's Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, located on Plantage Middenlaan street. Originally opened as a theater in 1892, the building was repurposed by German occupiers in 1942 as a collection point for Amsterdam Jews before their deportation to Westerbork transit camp and other concentration camps. Today, the site, situated in the heart of the city's Jewish quarter, annually commemorates Holocaust victims.
The mayor's announcement follows an investigation by the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies (NIOD), examining the role municipal services played in the persecution of Amsterdam's Jewish residents.
Previous research had already revealed Amsterdam's active collaboration in these persecutions. Police assisted in raids, the municipal population registry handed over Jewish residents' addresses to Nazi occupiers, and city-operated trams transported thousands of Jews to deportation assembly points.
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The €25 million allocated by the city is not intended for memorial projects or directly combating antisemitism. Instead, the funds are meant to support cultural and social activities within Amsterdam's Jewish community, aiming to help the thriving community feel more secure in everyday life and enabling its members to practice their lifestyle without external pressures or threats.
Already last year, in an interview with local news channel AT5, Halsema announced the city's decision to relinquish money it had received during the war as payment for transporting Jews to deportation sites. "This is money the city should never have accepted," Halsema said, referring to a sum equivalent to approximately €61,000 in today's currency (rounded up to €100,000).
With this upcoming apology, Halsema will become the first mayor in the Netherlands to officially apologize for a city's role during World War II. The move follows former Dutch Prime Minister and current NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who in 2020 issued an apology for the Dutch government's wartime actions.