To its past and present Jewish residents . Jews have contributed more than any other ones to world culture , science , arts and industry . And this in the whole world . For Amsterdam we could add Hebrew words People used : Me'a , Mazel , Kosher .

to be able to have lived in Holland, for centuries they had more rights than for example catholics. And in which other country Spinoza could have written and survived. And please don't start about WW2. That the number of Jews went to their deaths was a bit more complex than simple antisemitism. A country doesn't go overnight from totally exepting Jewish citizens to being antisemits. Get yourselves an education!

It sounds like this mayor will be a very good mayor and that the people of Amsterdam are blesses with such a awesomeleader.

That title lost the city for more than hundred year ago and where now a Jew no longer can't walk around without fear recognizable as a Jew.

So give us an education. Tell us, really tell us, what the Dutch Jews did that warranted being shipped off to extermination with the intensive complicity of Dutch Nazi collaborators -- an aspect of the story that the Dutch mainstraim still fails to acknowledge.

The mayor is "astonished" when asked if he thought European Jewry can survive. He should not be. It's not just that the majority of that community was killed in the war. For generations, the Jews were a significant minority across the continent. Now they are being swamped in numbers by the continent's growing Muslim population, and they often foster an atmosphere hostile to Jews. In the UK and France, Jews are outnumbered 10:1 by Muslims; in Germany, it is 40:1; in Sweden, 70:1. And those numbers are only getting worse.

reasonable answer to Naftush @ 5 you post is exactly it, anti-Semitic and there is no need to pretend otherwise.

a photo op for the paranoid Rabbi and a just polite politician like the mayor . the key word is dwindiling ..and it is true in europe not only amesterdam . and were the heck did you get that from ,the Jerusalem of the west ,ilive here ,never heard of that BS .

I cannot understand the reason for this article. Every Amsterdam mayor says the same thing about Jews. More often than not Amsterdam has a Jewish mayor. This article should have been about the no-go areas for Jews in Amsterdam. About the violent anti-semitism of immigrants. And about van der Laan's predecessor, the anti-Israel Cohen who let this happen. A Jewish appeaser acting in the tradition of the wartime "Joodse Raad" who ensured the eficient transport of (other) Jews.

Actually, mayor of Amsterdam is a very inmportant position, comparable to mayor of NY in the USA. For example, Amsterdam former mayor - cohen is the leader of the labor party and was candita for the prime minister ship. And what makes you think the rabbi is paranoid? And if you don't know Amsterdam's original title it just shows on your total ignorance. So maybe you should stay quiet instead of letting everyone hear your pessimistic onproductive voice.

Dear Albert Camus, While we have to fight anti-semitism we also have to express a positive atitude towards people who stick up for us.

Just like the rest of Europe, the threat to Jews comes not from native Europeans but from Muslim immigrants that you see in the western part of Amsterdam.

when one can wear a kippa in public without getting attacked.

Do you know that in the Netherlands untill the 1990's everyone had to register himself at the city hall and give his religion ? So , exept antisemitism , as in whole Europa , the nazis had only to look at the registers , and immediately see who was Jewish . When looking at a Dutch encyclopedia you would find such statistics : town X 31.76 % Catholics , 28.64 % reforms , 2.06 Jews , etc . Very precise numbers

Seeing who was Jewish was only the first stage. For all the rest -- the roundups, the transports to Westerbork, flushing out would-be rescuers of Jews -- the Nazis relied on Dutch collaborators, of whom they found plenty. The Dutch narrative of the war and the Holocaust leaves this out. The omission is pervasive, recurring in places as diverse as the Westerbork museum and the Amsterdam canal tour.

The first "stage" was a very important one . There were not many people needed then to arrest and deport them . And it were not only the nsb'ers who did it , the gestapo and other nazi forces participated . Yes , there were dutch police officers who collaborated . More then in other countries ? i have no numbers , but i know that this happened also in France and Belgium . You seem to forget that the Netherlands were considered an "aryan" state by the nazis who also imposed a german nazi , seys inquart , as the "big boss" there . This contrary to Belgium where the ruler was a wehrmacht officer , Von Falkenhausen , not specially sympathic to nazism . You also seem to forget that there was a big strike against the deportation of Jews . This costed very much to Amsterdam and other towns . Now , tell me wich country likes to acknowledge their participation in the destruction of European Jewry . France did it , 50 years after end of WWII .

Dutch complicity went much farther than "dutch police officers who collaborated." Much as in France, hardly a Dutch Jew was deported without some level of Dutch complicity in the stages that I listed above. But back to my main point: the Dutch narrative omits even the collaboration that you acknowledge. I confronted a researcher at Westerbork with this conclusion, which I drew after visiting the Amsterdam municipal museum's Anne Frank exhibition and Westerbork. She basically acknowledged it and conjectured, I think hopefully, that some future generation would tackle the matter.

As there are , as far as known to me , NO stats about the number of Jews arrested by collaborators in the Netherlands and other countries , it's impossible to say or deny anything . I know that the big roundups in my birth country were made by the nazis . In cases , i don't have numbers , they were accompagnied by local police , or/and by collaborators , who were sometimes worse than the germans . My Father ZL was arrested by the gestapo . You certainly know that hiding Jews in the Netherlands was also very dangerous . Not many who were found doing it , survived . I have seen a long reportage in the dutch tongue , made by the NOS about dutch police officers who collaborated in the arrest of Jews . The one i remember did'nt regret his asctions . But i still think that those registers were the main reason of the high % of Jews who were murdered in the Netherlands . Regarding narrative . As i said it , only in 1995 did a French high ranked official , the President , recognise the responsability of the French State in the Shoah . Nobody wants to recognise his responsability in such a tragedy .

In April 2005, Holland’s prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende, apologized for his country’s collaboration with the Nazis. The Dutch wartime government “worked on the horrible process whereby Jews were stripped of their rights,” Balkenende said before he helped mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Westerbork transit camp.

While it is true that no European country (including Denmark) has a clear conscience with regards to the Holocaust, some countries behaved worse than others. 100.000 out of 140.000 Dutch Jews were murdered during the Shoah, which is proportionally by far the highest murder rate in all of Western Europe. As Nafthush correctly pointed out, this could not have taken place without extensive Dutch cooperation.

I fully agree that without collaboration of dutch people there would not be such a number of Jews murdered . But , did the Dutch people collaborate MORE than others ? Do you have numbers ? Or is it , as i think , that the registers at the town halls made it easier . The Danes did all what was possible to save "their" Jews , and 7500 out of 8000 were brought by them to Sweden [ approx number ]

Did the dutch collaborate MORE than in other countries ? As there are NO numbers , i think , that the registers at the city hall were the great factors .