“It is high time our country showed contrition for its failure to protect Jews in the Second World War.

“In a historic apology, Dutch. Prime Minister Mark Rutte finally acknowledged that too many Dutch officials supinely obeyed Nazi orders after their country was occupied. In total, 102,000 of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust came from the Netherlands; survivors later told “heart-breaking” stories about the distrust and disbelief they experienced on their return home.

“In the years after the War, the Dutch fostered an image of themselves as a “stubborn” people who defied their occupiers by harbouring Jews – most notably the family of Anne Frank, who hid for two years before being sent to their deaths – in concealed rooms. These examples, while “all very good and moving”, present a false image. In reality, the Netherlands was far less heroic. The population was actually “reasonably accommodating” to their Nazi occupiers; most people remained silent, while others even helped the Nazis with their “terrible work”. For years afterwards the Dutch made excuses for themselves (“We didn’t have it easy either”). Rutte’s apology was “courageous” – but it was one his predecessors should have made nearly 75 years earlier”.   (Trouw, Amsterdam)

My comment: This has nothing to do with the Jews, but I once asked my mother what she would have done had the Nazis succeeded in invading Britain. Would she have resisted or cooperated?  She replied,  “I had two, very little, children and your father was away, with the RAF, for most of the six years of the war.  I was alone. What do you think?  Of course, the children came first. I would have done literally anything at all to protect the two of you”.

I always admired my mother’s straightforward honesty.  No heroics for her. But we are so used to movies and books about the selfless resistance  throughout Europe (by everyone!) that the truth is a bit jarring, but very believable – and in this instance understandable. It’s easy to criticize the Dutch at this distance in time.  A bit of imagination would not go amiss.