Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Sunday offered for the first an apology for the war-time persecution of Jews on behalf of his country.
"Now the last survivors are still with us, I apologize today in the name of the government for what the authorities did at that time," Rutte was quoted by French news agency AFP as saying during an address in Amsterdam at a memorial event marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp.
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Only 38,000 of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands survived World War II, but no Duch government has ever apologized for the role the authorities played.
The question of an apology was raised in 2012 when Rutte was also prime minister, but he said not enough information was available about government action during the war and that there was "not broad enough support" for an official apology.
In 2000, then-Prime Minister Wim Kok apologized for the "icy welcome" Nazi camp survivors received on their return to the Netherlands, which the Nazis occupied from 1940-1945.
"Our government institutions did not act as guardians of justice and security," Rutte said Sunday.
"Too many civil servants carried out the orders of the occupiers. The bitter consequences of the drawing up of registers [of Jews] and of the expulsions have not been adequately recognized, nor recognized in time" Rutte added.
