Amsterdam authorities will issue an official apology to the local Jewish community for the city’s role in the persecution of Jews during World War II at a Holocaust commemoration next week, Dutch media reported.

The city’s mayor, Femke Halsema, will deliver the formal apology on April 24, during events for Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah).

Every year, the Dutch capital commemorates Holocaust victims at Amsterdam’s Hollandsche Schouwburg theater, originally opened in 1892 and situated in the heart of the city’s Jewish quarter. In 1942, the building was repurposed by Nazi German occupiers as a collection point for Amsterdam Jews before their deportation to Westerbork transit camp and other concentration camps.

According to the Dutch news site Het Parool, Amsterdam authorities will also allocate €25 million to bolster Jewish life in the city, supporting cultural and social programs designed to help the community feel safer and freely practice their traditions.

As in many other countries across Europe, antisemitism has sharply risen in the Netherlands following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, with incidents spiking by 800 percent in the weeks after the Palestinian terrorist organization’s atrocities.

Last year, Israeli soccer fans were violently attacked in Amsterdam after watching the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team compete against the Dutch club Ajax in a European League match. At the time, Halsema called the attackers “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” who went “Jew hunting.”

With Amsterdam’s announcement, Halsema will be the first mayor in the country to publicly apologize for and recognize a city’s role in the persecution of Jews during World War II.

The mayor’s expected apology follows an investigation by the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies (NIOD) into the role of Amsterdam’s municipal services in the persecution of Jews during the Nazi occupation. Previous reports revealed that police took part in raids, the city handed over Jewish residents’ addresses to the Nazis, and municipal trams were used to transport thousands to deportation points.

In 2020, then-Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who currently serves as secretary general of NATO, issued a public apology for the Dutch government’s wartime actions.

Last year, Halsema announced the city would give up the money it received during the war for transporting Jews to deportation sites, a sum originally equivalent to about €61,000 today. The municipality rounded the amount up to €100,000 and paid it into a fund managed by the Central Jewish Consultation (CJO), which can decide how the money is used.

During World War II, the Netherlands had the highest percentage of Jewish victims in Western Europe, with three-quarters of its Jewish population being murdered.

“Better late than never,” Ronny Naftaniel, a prominent member of the Dutch Jewish community, told Het Parool. “It would be good if the apology was not just about the war, but also about the period immediately afterwards, given the cold reception that returned Jews received at the time.”

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