Traian Popovici

Traian Popovici 1934

Traian Popovici (born October 17, 1892 in Udeştii , Suceava County ; died June 4, 1946 in Colacu , Suceava County) was a Romanian lawyer and mayor of Chernivtsi . In 1969 he was included in the list of Righteous Among the Nations from Romania for his commitment to the Jewish inhabitants of his city .

Life

Traian Popovici was born in Udeştii (Suczawa District) as the son of a priest of the Orthodox Church. After high school, he began to study law , which he interrupted in 1914 for voluntary military service in the Romanian army and completed in 1919 with a dissertation . Then he worked as a lawyer in Chernivtsi. In June 1940 he fled the invasion of the Red Army to Bucharest , where he worked in the care of Romanian refugees. After the Romanian army recaptured northern Bukovina , he was appointed mayor of the city of Chernivtsi in early August 1941.

In October 1941, the city's 50,000 Jews were taken to a ghetto on the instructions of General Ion Antonescu . When they threatened to be deported to the Romanian occupied area of Transnistria a little later , Popovici, together with the German consul Fritz Schellhorn , protested to the governor General Calotesc against this order, arguing that it was indispensable for economic reasons. Antonescu granted a temporary exemption for 20,000 Jews. The selection was made by a commission from the Romanian army. Popovici himself issued residence permits (autorizaţie) for over 4,000 Jews. Most of the Jews initially rescued were nevertheless deported to Transnistria in the summer of 1942. Popovici was removed from the mayor's office in June 1942.

When the Romanian army began to withdraw at the end of 1943, Popovici tried unsuccessfully to enable the Bukovinian Jews to return from Transnistria. Only a few managed to return home before the fall of Antonescu on August 23, 1944.

Popovici testified after 1945 in the trial of Calotescu and other generals about the events in Chernivtsi. His report on the deportations was first published by Matatias Carp of the Bucharest community in the Black Book on the Sufferings of the Jews from Romania and in 1962 was included in the volume on the history of the Bukovinian Jews edited by Hugo Gold .

When Popovici died in 1946, many Jews attended his funeral. The head of the Bucharest Jewish community, Wilhelm Filderman , thanked him. In 1969 he was the first Romanian to be honored at the Yad Vashem memorial as a helper of the Jews.

Honors

Gravestone Traian Popovici

• 1969: Inclusion in the list of the Righteous Among the Nations from Romania in Israel.
• 2000: Name of a street in Bucharest: "Strada Traian Popovici"
• 2009: Honor plaque on his former home with an inscription in Ukrainian, English and French: “Here lived Traian Popovici (1892 - 1946). In 1941, as Mayor of Czernowitz, he saved 19,600 Jews from deportation to Transnistria and probable death. Remembered in eternal gratitude by the Jews of Czernowitz. "

literature

• Mariana Hausleitner: Rescue operations for persecuted Jews with special consideration of the Bukovina 1941-1944. In: Wolfgang Benz / Brigitte Mihok (eds.): Holocaust on the periphery - Jewish policy and murder of Jews in Romania and Transnistria 1940-1944. Berlin 2009, there pp. 133–138 (not viewed)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Mariana Hausleitner u. a. (Ed.): The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany 1933–1945 (collection of sources) Volume 13: Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria . Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-036500-9 , p. 63.
2. ^ Mariana Hausleitner in the Bukowina portal .
3. ^ Hugo Gold: History of the Jews in Bukowina . A compilation. Volume 2: 1919-1944, Ed. Olamenu, Tel Aviv 1962
4. ↑ Traian Popovici and the Jews of Czernowitz in the Jewish Virtual Library. (English). Retrieved April 28, 2019