Israeli Ambassador to Romania Dr. Lior Ben Dor visited Adolf Hitler’s grave. This is not a mistake. The ambassador did indeed visit the grave of a Jewish man named Adolf Hittler, a hatmaker buried in the Ashkenazi Jewish Philanthropy Cemetery in Bucharest. It is the largest and oldest Jewish cemetery in the Romanian capital, with 29,000 graves.
The ambassador visited the cemetery together with historian Professor Felicia Waldman, director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Bucharest. They toured the Jewish graves, where the tombstones note the professions of the deceased, including “doctor,” “lawyer,” “engineer,” “architect,” “pharmacist,” “banker,” “academic” and “artist” — testimony to the integration of Jews into Romania’s social elite and their vital contribution to its development, despite the fact that Jewish civil rights were recognized only belatedly, after 1919.
Many prominent figures in Romanian culture are buried in the Jewish cemetery, including musicologist Iosif Sava, opera director Hero Lupescu, actor Moni Ghelerter, Dr. Leon Ghelerter, journalist Max Bănuș, physician and academic Nicolae Cajal, Jacob Marmorosch, founder of Marmorosch Bank, writer Mihail Sebastian and Rudolf Steiner, a co-founder of the Romanian Opera.
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Ambassador Dr. Lior Ben-Dor and historian Prof. Felicia Waldman
(Photo: Israeli Embassy in Romania)
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The Jewish cemetery visited by the ambassador contains 29,000 graves
(Photo: Israeli Embassy in Romania)
But the Israeli ambassador was also surprised to visit the grave of a Jew named “Adolf Hittler.” Of course, this was not the Nazi tyrant, but a Jewish hatmaker who died in 1892, when the leader of the Nazi Party was 3 years old.
The Jewish Adolf Hittler owned a hat shop on Royal Street in Bucharest. During World War II, his gravestone was vandalized and the inscription “Hittler” was removed, but in 1987 the original name was restored. Unlike the Nazi tyrant, the Jewish hatmaker spelled his name with two t's.
There are also Israelis with the surname Hitler.