Antisemitism in Europe > Attacks in Denmark skyrocket

 

Antisemitic Attacks Skyrocket in Denmark

Aug 14, 2025 4:00 pm By Hugh Fitzgerald13 Comments

Denmark had a good World War II. It managed to save almost all of its Jews, smuggling them in small boats to safety in Sweden before the Nazis could murder them. King Christian X, when he was in residence at his castle at Amalianborg, continued his prewar custom of riding his horse through the streets of Copenhagen, an act widely interpreted as defiance of the German occupiers. Although the story of the King wearing a yellow star in solidarity with Jews is likely apocryphal, there is no doubt that Denmark did more to rescue its Jews than any other country save, possibly, Bulgaria.

That was then, and this is now. Like other European countries, Denmark has seen a steep and sickening rise in antisemitic incidents ever since October 7. 2023. More on the latest news about antisemitic attacks in Denmark can be found here: 

Denmark sees highest ever number of antisemitic incidents in 2024, including nine violent attacks

by Mathilda Heller, Jerusalem Post, July 23, 2025:

The number of antisemitic incidents in Denmark in 2024 was the highest ever recorded, the Department for Mapping and Knowledge Sharing of Antisemitic Incidents (AKVAH) revealed in a 174-page report earlier this year. AKVAH was established in 2011 as part of the security branch of the Jewish Community in Denmark.

A total of 207 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, an increase of 71% on the previous year (121 incidents) and over eight times higher than 10 years ago. One of the 2024 incidents – the arson attack on a Jewish woman’s home – was an “extreme and life-threatening form of antisemitism, of a kind that AKVAH has not recorded since the 2015 terrorist attack on the synagogue, in which volunteer guard Dan Uzan was killed.”

Of the 207 incidents last year, 60% of them were related to either Israel, the war in Gaza, or other events in the Middle East, said AKVAH. References to the Holocaust, World War II, Hitler, or incidents of explicit Nazi symbolism made up 47% of last year’s antisemitic incidents.

Nine of the instances involved violence, assault, or other physical harassment of Jews, including a stabbing attack on a Jewish boy in Slagelse.

There were also five incidents of concrete and explicit death threats and 20 incidents involving calls for the killing of Jews in general or expressions of a desire for the death of Jews. The report provides examples of a Jewish man being told “All Jews must die” in a pub in Copenhagen.

It’s used far too often, that famous line of iambic pentameter, but here, as never before, it fits: Something really is rotten in the state of Denmark.