Pauline Janet Williamson

1990 Auckland Jewish daycare stabbing

Greys Avenue, Auckland, New Zealand, where the kindergarten in question is located, 27 years later (November 2017).
Date	16 July 1990 (1990-07-16)
Time	~ unknown
Location	Hebrew Kadimah School kindergarten Auckland, New Zealand
Type	Mass stabbing, domestic terrorism, hate crime
Motive	Antisemitism
Target	Jews
Deaths	0
Non-fatal injuries	4
Suspects	Pauline Janet Williamson
Trial	Suspect deemed mentally unfit to stand trial

On 16 July 1990, a mentally ill woman attacked the courtyard of the Jewish Kadimah College's primary school in Central Auckland, stabbing four children with a knife while screaming antisemitic slogans. The attack continued as other young students looked on "in horror", while members of staff ran to help the children. The woman, 52-year-old Pauline Janet Williamson, was eventually disarmed by a male teacher, Mr Yurovitch. The children, aged 6 to 8, were hospitalised immediately afterwards; all survived, after going intensive surgery. They were identified by police as 6-year-old twins Nicholas and Samuel Henderson; Simon Clark, 6, and Damon Bree, 8.

This apparently random act of antisemitic violence in New Zealand, a country known to be tolerant of its Jewish community, shocked many. However, it followed the desecration of several Jewish graves in Dunedin by two months, which itself was a copycat of an attack on Jewish graves in Carpentras, in the South of France.

Attack

As the pupils played in the school courtyard before school was due to start on Monday, 16 July 1990, mental health outpatient Pauline Janet Williamson ran onto the school courtyard, where 6 year olds Nicholas and Sam Henderson and Simon Clark, and 8-year-old Damon Bree were playing. She then produced a 4-inch, stay-sharp vegetable knife and began screaming antisemitic slogans and a Jewish surname (not one shared by any of the victims), before wildly lacerating these four children.

Part of a series on
Antisemitism
Part of Jewish history and discrimination
History Timeline Reference
Definitions Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism Nexus Task Force Three Ds Working definition of antisemitism
Manifestations Academic Alt-right American History 21st-century Arab Argentine Austrian Belgian British Conservative Party Labour Party Canadian Chinese Chilean Costa Rican Christian Christian Identity Creativity Economic European French 21st-century Gaza War German Greek Holocaust denial Hungarian Imperial Russian Islamic Italian Japanese Medieval Nation of Islam Nazism Neo-Nazi Strasserism Norwegian New Olympic Pakistani Palestinian Racial Religious Russian Saudi Secondary South African Soviet Stalinist Spanish Swedish Turkish Ukrainian Venezuelan Worldwide COVID-19 pandemic incidents Zionist
Antisemitic tropes Andinia Plan Blood libel Cultural Marxism Deicide Dreyfus affair Finance control Franklin Prophecy Host desecration International Jewish conspiracy Jewish lobby Jewish war conspiracy theory Judensau Judeo-Bolshevism Żydokomuna Judeo-Masonism Kosher tax Media control Rootless cosmopolitan Doctors' plot Slánský trial QAnon Stab-in-the-back myth Well poisoning White genocide ZOG conspiracy
Antisemitic publications The Barnes Review Culture of Critique Currency Wars The Dearborn Independent Ethnic Cleansing La France juive Hitlers Zweites Buch Hunter (William Luther Pierce) The International Jew La Libre Parole Mein Kampf On the Jews and Their Lies Our Race Will Rule Undisputed Over The World Protocols of the Elders of Zion The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews Siege The Turner Diaries
Antisemitism on the Internet 4chan (/pol/) 8chan The Daily Stormer Gab Groypers Jew Watch Metapedia Occidental Observer Renegade Tribune The Right Stuff Stormfront Terrorgram Triple parentheses TruNews The Unz Review
Persecution Rhineland massacres Black Death persecutions Boycotts Expulsions Jewish quarter Ghettos in Europe Mellah The Holocaust Jewish hat Jewish quota Judensau Martyrdom in Judaism Nuremberg Laws Pale of Settlement Pogroms Russian Empire Russian Civil War Refuseniks Segregation Spanish Inquisition Yellow badge
Opposition Anti-Defamation League Campaign Against Antisemitism Community Security Trust Fundamental Rights Agency Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism Philosemitism Simon Wiesenthal Center Southern Poverty Law Center Stephen Roth Institute Swedish Committee Against Antisemitism Union of Councils for Soviet Jews UN Watch Wiener Holocaust Library Working Definition of Antisemitism Yad Vashem
Category
v t e