The tombstone was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005 by the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities.
Top section from a broken, carved, pink marbled sandstone grave marker with an arched top with a rectangular border and a smooth, recessed front panel with 3 carved lines of Ladino text . The tombstone is broken nearly straight across the text, with an sharply angled left side. front, carved : "נ [איש] חשוב מ"ה [מורנו הרב] אשר זעליג במ"ה [בן מורנו הרב [Here is buried an important man our master rabbi Asher Zelig son of our master rabbi]
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overall: Height: 12.750 inches (32.385 cm) | Width: 24.375 inches (61.913 cm) | Depth: 2.500 inches (6.35 cm)
Desecrated, partial pink tombstone with an engraved Ladino inscription recovered from the Jewish cemetery located on Sevastopol Street in Bucharest, Romania. The modern Jewish community has undertaken work to preserve what remains of the site. Other remaining gravestones were moved to the Sephardic cemetery in Bucharest. The Sevastopol Street Jewish cemetery was a historic cemetery where burials ceased in 1864. In September 1940, the right-wing, Nazi-allied government of General Antonescu and the Iron Guard seized power. Violence against Jews was common and there were two monstrous pogroms, in Bucharest and Iasi. In 1942, the regime ordered the cemetery demolished. Work began on June 25 and continued through 1944. Jewish forced laborers were made to remove the stones and break them into pieces for paving material.
Broken pink gravestone with a Ladino inscription from a desecrated Jewish cemetery recovered postwar