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. Only 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands survived World War II, but no government apology had been offered for the role the authorities played.
