Mayor Halsema will apologize to Jewish community for Amsterdam's role in WWII

Mayor Femke Halsema will formally apologize to the Jewish community for the municipality of Amsterdam’s role in the persecution of Jews during the Second World War. The city is also making 25 million euros available to strengthen Jewish life in the Dutch capital, several sources in and around city hall confirmed to Parool.

Halsema will make the apology on behalf of the municipality at the Hollandsche Schouwburg on April 24, where the victims of the Shoah are commemorated every year. The apology follows an investigation by NIOD into the municipal services’ role in the persecution of Jewish Amsterdammers, the report on which should be published soon.

Previous studies have already shown that Amsterdam actively cooperated in this persecution. The police assisted in raids, the population registry provided Jewish residents’ address details to the Nazi occupiers, and GVB trams transported thousands of Jews to collection points for deportation.

Parool’s sources said that the apology is not reparations, but recognition of the municipality’s share in this chapter of history.

The city is also working on a fund of 25 million euros to strengthen Jewish life in the city. According to the newspaper’s sources, this amount is not for commemoration projects or to fight anti-Semitism, but for cultural and social activities from the community itself. The goal is to make Amsterdam’s thriving Jewish community more visible in daily life, and to contribute to a greater understanding and anchoring of Jewish life in the city.

Halsema already hinted that an apology was coming in an interview with AT5 last year. At the time, the municipality had announced that it would be waiving the money earned during the war by transporting Jewish people for deportation. “Money that the municipality should never have had,” Halsema told the Amsterdam broadcaster. Converted to today’s currency values, it involves an amount of 61,000 euros. The municipality rounded it up to 100,000 euros and paid it into a fund that the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO) is allowed to spend.

Halsema will be the first mayor to apologize for a municipality’s role in the Second World War. Then-Prime Minister Mark Rutte already apologized on behalf of the national government during the National Holocaust Remembrance in 2020.