Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema apologized for the city's role in the persecution of its Jewish citizens during World War II, acknowledging that the government let its Jewish residents down terribly. Halsema made the apology at an event marking Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, stating that civil servants in Amsterdam actively participated in the murder of thousands of Jewish citizens. This apology comes ahead of the 80th anniversary of the Netherlands' liberation from the Nazis.