Flyers promoting the antisemitic “blood libel” and children’s dolls splashed with red paint are seen following the vandalism of the Jewish cemetery in Aalborg, Denmark. Photo: via social media.

A chilling spectacle of children’s dolls splashed with fake blood alongside dozens of flyers promoting the infamous antisemitic “blood libel” was discovered at a Jewish cemetery in the Danish city of Aalborg on Sunday night.

Police are investigating the vandalism as a hate crime and are attempting to apprehend the culprits, local media outlets reported on Monday.

The flyers were marked with a large Star of David and the word “Pesach” — the Hebrew name for the Passover holiday that was celebrated last week — on top of a text that labeled the holiday “another Jewish celebration of bloodshed.” They were signed with the online address of Nordfront, the Danish wing of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) that is active across the Scandinavian countries.

Several children’s dolls covered in red paint to symbolize blood were left at the entrance to the cemetery as well as thrown over the outer wall into the graveyard. The cemetery walls were also splashed with red paint.

Henrik Beck, the police officer in charge of the investigation, told the news outlet Ekstra Bladet that as the perpetrators were still to be found, he was not in a position to confirm that the NRM was responsible for the outrage.

“There is some indication that this act has something to do with the Nordfront — unless there is someone pretending to be them, and then it is someone else who has done this,” Beck said on Monday. “We have to find out, and I will not judge them unless we are completely clear that they were responsible.”

However, a post on Nordfront’s website on Sunday effectively claimed responsibility, announcing that “activists from the Nordic Resistance Movement carried out an information campaign in several cities over the weekend to make people aware of the Jews foreign customs.” On the first night of Passover last week, a synagogue in the Swedish city of Norrkoping was similarly vandalized and the same antisemitic leaflets distributed.

In its web posting, the NRM described the occasion of Passover as marking “when the Jews rebelled in Egypt and vengefully killed the host nation’s firstborn children.”

It then recycled the medieval slander that Jews bake matzah — the unleavened bread eaten during Passover, when Jews are forbidden from consuming leavened products — with the blood of Christian children.

A representative for Nordfront attempted to duck the issue of direct responsibility for the Aalborg cemetery vandalism by claiming that his organization and the NRM were separate groups.

“Writers and editors at Nordfront write articles and run the site, while activists in the ‘Resistance’ carry out activism,” Mikkel Pedersen told Ekstra Bladet. “Nordfront of course supports the activism of the ‘Resistance’ and we agree to be the mouthpiece and close partner of the ‘Resistance.'”

Henri Goldstein, president of the Jewish Community in Denmark (Mosaisk Troessamfund), said on Monday that news of the vandalism would only increase the sense of insecurity among Denmark’s Jews, who number about 8,000 and are mostly concentrated in the capital, Copenhagen.

“When such things happen, it creates a suspicion that there is something else to fear — including physical violence,” Goldstein told Danish broadcaster DR.

The vandalism in Aalborg was an example of “classical” antisemitism, Goldstein commented.

“The flyers in Aalborg claimed that matzah is prepared with the blood of Christians — it’s completely insane, a classic conspiracy theory,” he said. “We have seen this for centuries in Europe.”

The vandalism in Aalborg was at least the second occasion in the last two years that a Jewish cemetery in Denmark was violated by neo-Nazis. Last October, two men were jailed for destroying gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in the town of Randers.

Denmark’s Justice Minister strongly condemned the vandalism in Aalborg, calling it “outrageous and deeply shameful.”

“The case is now being investigated by the police, and it is simply reprehensible that we should again witness burial sites being desecrated,” Justice Minister Nick Hækkerup declared in a written statement.