Skip to content
Zakhor
Back to catalogue

Attacks (since 1970)

Car bomb attack in front of the synagogue on Hoveniers Street

20 oct. 1981·Anvers

Toll
3

The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.

In October 1981, a car bomb explodes on rue Hoveniers in Antwerp, in front of the Portuguese synagogue, in the heart of the diamond district where one of the densest Jewish communities in Western Europe lives. The explosion occurs on a feast day, as worshippers were leaving the service; it kills bystanders and wounds more than a hundred people.

The attack is part of the series striking communities across Europe at the same time — Vienna, Paris, Rome — bringing a Middle Eastern conflict onto the continent. It leads Belgium to place the Jewish schools and places of worship in Antwerp under permanent protection, a measure that has never since been lifted.

Period :
Attacks (since 1970)
Type :
Attack
Region :
Western Europe
Country :
Belgique
Sources

Presse belge contemporaine ; dossiers judiciaires belges sur les attentats du début des années quatre-vingt.

At the same place4

  1. 14 avr. 1941Pogrom of Antwerpbilan non établi
  2. août 1942Roundups of Antwerpbilan non établi
  3. 3-4 sept. 1943Roundup of Belgian Jews from Antwerpbilan non établi
  4. 27 juill. 1980Grenade launched at a group of Jewish children waiting for their bus in front of a community center1

In the same country17

  1. 1350Massacres of the Black Death in Brabant~600
  2. 1370Host affair, Jews burned then expulsion~20
  3. 1370Accusation of Host Desecration in Brabantinconnu
  4. mai 1940Expulsion of Jews from the Belgian coastbilan non établi
  5. oct. 1940First anti-Jewish ordinances in Belgiumbilan non établi
  6. 1942Arrests of the Jews of Namurbilan non établi
  7. 1942Arrests of the Jews of Gandbilan non établi
  8. 1942Arrests of the Jews of Charleroibilan non établi

And 9 more in the catalogue.

Event 2336 of 2483, in chronological order · Attacks (since 1970): 174 events in the catalogue