Ministers prompt call for Dutch apology to Jews

CONTROVERSIAL Dutch MP Geert Wilders has called on the Netherlands to apologise for the country’s “passive” response to the deportations of Jews by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands before the war, more than 100,000 were murdered.

Mr Wilders is best known for his criticism of Islam and is a supporter of Israel. He wrote to Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte asking if he would apologise based on comments by two former government ministers in a recently published book about post-war reparations.

Former health minister Els Borst said in an interview for the book, Judging the Netherlands by Manfred Gerstenfeld, that she believes the Dutch wartime government in exile would have been tougher had Nazis been deporting Catholics or Protestants. Ms Borst, who was involved in negotiations on reparations, said wartime prime minister Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy and Queen Wilhelmina should have appealed for Dutch people to do more to protect Jews.

Gerrit Zalm, a former finance minister who also took part in restitution negotiations, told Mr Gerstenfeld: “I would not have had a problem with apologising.”