"Official urges Dutch to apologize for WWII Jewish deportations" January 05, 2012|By Mike Corder
THE HAGUE - An outspoken Dutch lawmaker, Geert Wilders, called on the government yesterday to apologize for the country’s “passive’’ response to the mass deportations of Jews by Nazi occupiers during World War II.
The move is likely to reignite debate about Dutch attitudes to the wartime persecution of the country’s Jewish population.
Of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands before the war, more than 100,000 were deported and killed. About 30,000 Jews live here now, out of a total population of nearly 17 million.
Wilders is best known for his strident criticism of Islam and also is a strong supporter of Israel....
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They gave him op space. Wow.
A spokesman, Chris Breedveld, said the government would carefully study and respond to Wilders’s questions.
One of the former ministers, Els Borst, says in an interview for the book, “Judging the Netherlands’’ by Manfred Gerstenfeld, that she believes the response by the Dutch wartime government in exile would have been tougher had Nazis been deporting Catholics or Protestants.
Borst, who as health minister was involved in negotiations in the 1990s on reparations for Jews, said the wartime prime minister, Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, and Queen Wilhelmina should have appealed from their administration in exile in London for Dutch people to do more to protect Jews.
“The government’s stance shows that they, along with many others, saw Jewish Dutch citizens as a special group and thought: ‘We have real Dutch people and we have Jewish Dutch people,’ ’’ Borst said in an interview, a copy of which author Gerstenfeld emailed to the Associated Press.
Wilders said he was shocked by the comments. “It would be fitting if the government were at least to offer its apologies,’’ Wilders said in a statement.
In 2000, the Dutch government agreed to pay $180 million in restitution to Jews and Prime Minister Wim Kok expressed regret for the way the Dutch treated Jews after the war.
Isn't that enough of an apology?
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"Nursery helps orphaned baby seals" January 13, 2012
AMSTERDAM - Storms that have lashed the Dutch coast this year have created a wave of orphaned baby seals - some so young their umbilical cords are still attached - wrenched from their mothers and washed up on beaches and dikes....
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"EVACUATION IN THE NETHERLANDS -- Police and soldiers evacuated about 800 people yesterday from four villages about 125 miles north of Amsterdam because of fears that a dike might break after days of torrential rain. Authorities said that if one section of the dike gave way, it would submerge hundreds of acres of land under up to 5 feet of water (Boston Globe January 7 2012)."