Traian Popovici was born 120 years ago, on October 17th, 1892, in Rusii Manastioarei, a small village in Bukovina that was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. Nowadays, the village is part of Suceava County, North-Eastern Romania. Traian Popovici, the mayor of Cernauti during World War II, is the man who saved tens of thousands of Jews from being sent to extermination camps. Born into a family of priests, who traditionally fought against foreign occupation, he attended the Orthodox High School in Suceava and then studied law at the University of Cernauti, also getting a PhD in law.

Researcher Lya Benjamin, from the Center for the Study of the History of Jews in Romania, tells us more about him:

Lya Benjamin: “Worth mentioning is that in 1914, Traian Popovici crossed the Austro-Hungarian border illegally, to come to Romania, join the Romanian army and take part in WW1. In early July 1941 he was appointed deputy mayor of the Cernauti, which at present is on Ukrainean territory, and on August the 1st, 1941, colonel Alexandru Riosanu, the governor of Bukovina, appointed him Mayor of Cernauti. Shortly after he had taken office, he had to deal with the Jewish problem, as he had been asked to create a ghetto for the Jews of Cernauti and then deport them to Transdniester, a region in the East of the Republic of Moldova. We’re talking about 50,000 Jews. Traian Popovici disobeyed the order. In his opinion, creating a ghetto for the Jews was a medieval mentality, incompatible with the cultural tradition of the town”.

At the time, Cernauti was the Romanian town with the largest number of Jews, after Bucharest. In 1941, the new governor announced his decision that all the Jews of Cernăuţi had to be deported to Transdniester. After talks with the governor, the latter allowed Popovici to nominate 200 Jews who were to be exempted. Unsatisfied with the modest concession, Traian Popovici tried reaching Antonescu himself, this time motivating that the Jews were of utmost importance for the economic and social development of Cernauti, therefore he asked for a postponement until they could be replaced.

As a result, he was allowed to expand the list, which covered 20,000 Jews to be allowed to stay in Cernauti, baptized Jews, intellectuals, artists, army officers, experts in industry, doctors, architects, jurists, etc. Popovici’s solution was similar to that of industrialist Oskar Schindler of Poland.

The Romanian-born Israeli historian Jean Ancel wrote that quote “The moment he realized he could not stop the general deportation, Traian Popovici came up with the following key words: selection, revision, double check. With those words -Ancel concluded – Popovici summed up the process that enabled him to save around 20 thousand out of the 500 thousand Jews living in Cernauti.

Traian Popovici died on June 4, 1946 and is buried in the courtyard of the Church in the village of Colacu nearby Fundu Moldovei (in north-eastern Romania). His position and the action he took with respect to the Jewish issue did not pass unnoticed and compelled the recognition they deserved. 23 years after his death, in 1969, the Yad Vashem Institute in Israel (the Holocaust Remembrance Authority in Israel) organized a ceremony in memory of Traian Popovici, posthumously designating him as “Righteous among the Nations.” Traian Popovici was the first Romanian to have been awarded that title (today there are 90 such Romanians).

Through a coincidence, Traian Popovici’s 120th birthday anniversary is celebrated in the same year when Raoul Wallenberg’s centennial is marked. Wallenberg was the diplomat the Swedish Government entrusted with saving the Jews in Budapest.

Traian Popovici’s courage and lofty humanism when he saved those 20 thousand Jews in Cernauti will also be depicted in the film production “ 20,000 Saints”, a documentary made by the Canadian Company Veni Vici Entertainment. The well-known actor Dustin Hoffman, a Jew of Romanian origin accepted the lead part of mayor Traian Popovici. We should also note that Hoffman’s parents had emigrated from Romania to California in the United States, shortly before their second child, Dustin was born in 1937.