There were mixed, but mostly positive, reactions to Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema’s apology to the Jewish community for the city’s cooperation with the Nazis during World War II on Thursday.

In her speech at the commemoration of the Holocaust at the Hollandsche Schouwburg, the mayor said the city’s “authorities and civil servants were not only cold and formalistic, but even prepared to help the occupiers.”

Halsema referred to the municipal services that “helped execute one measure after another”, including the registration requirement for Jews, even before the Germans had taken over the running of the city. Amsterdam police also helped carry out the deportations.

Transport company GVB provided trams and transported Jews to locations from where they were taken to camps. Of the 80,000 Jewish Amsterdammers, 60,000 were killed.

The people who did return found their homes had been plundered or taken over. “Others who managed to get back their home were confronted with an officialdom demanding back payments,” Halsema said.

“The inevitable conclusion must be that the city failed morally,” she said.

Halsema said the apology should be accompanied by material compensation and announced that €25 million would be set aside to promote Jewish life in the city. A committee led by former PvdA minister Jet Bussemaker will decide how the money will be spent together with Jewish organisations. “Without Jewish life, there is no Amsterdam,” Halsema said.

The Israel Information and documentation centre CIDI said the apology was “a beautiful gesture” and praised the mayor for having the courage to look at “a black page in the history of Amsterdam”. The organisation also said it had taken a long time to recognise the “painful role” council officials had played but that the apology came “better late than never”.

People present at the speech echoed the sentiment, with one woman saying the apology “should have happened sooner” and another saying “it was fitting and sensitive to say this in times like these”.

Amsterdam rabbi Abraham Rosenberg said the speech “came from the heart”.

The Jewish organisation Centraal Joods Overleg (CJO) said they would study the details of the speech and what it might mean for other local authorities. “The apology and the accompanying financial gesture are meant to give and return the identity, pride and resilience to the Jews of Amsterdam,” the CJO said in a written reaction.