The Romanian Mayor that Saved 20,000 Jews in WW2
By: Calin Aneculaesei
Tags: Life, Holocaust, Romania, History, World War II

The Romanian Mayor that Saved 20,000 Jews in WW2

The story of foolhardy Romanian mayor and his dangerous but successful clash with Romania’s fascist dictator

Bessarabia, Romania, 1941, Deportation of Jews. Courtesy of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center.

Romania seems to get a pass in terms of the blame put upon nations in the Second World War. Many make fun of Italy for switching sides during the conflict but those same people don’t know that Romania did something similar. Initially under the control of fascist dictator Ion Antonescu at the start of the Second World War, after a coup headed by the old Romanian King, Michael the First, the country switched sides in support of the invading Soviets.

Before this flip, the country suffered as any fascist country suffered. Minorities, specifically Jews and Roma gipsies were persecuted and even deported. Although most regional leaders would play along with Antonescu’s collaboration with the fascists in Berlin, one mayor would stand up against the dictator to protect his residents form persecution.

The Duchy of Bukovina

Traian Popovici was born under the Austro-Hungarian controlled Duchy of Bukovina on 17 October 1892. Before the First World War much of the northern region of Moldova was under the occupation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nationalism developed in this region with many ethnic Romanians wishing to unite with their home country.

Traian Popovici circa 1934. Courtesy of Wikicommons

Popovici’s family would be rife with such sentiment going as far back as his grandfather, the priest Ioan Popovich, who refused to subjugate himself to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Continuing this tradition Popovici was decidedly against the Austro-Hungarian occupation of the Bukovina region going as far as crossing the border illegally at the start of the First World War in order to join the Romanian armed forces.

After the war, he briefly worked as a lawyer in Chișinău, the now capital of Moldova, until the Soviet annexation of Bessarabia. He sought refuge in Bucharest after the annexation continuing his lawyer work there prior to being called upon by the new fascist dictator, Ion Antonescu.

Jidovitul

Ion Antonescu contacted the lawyer, seeking a candidate to become his mayor of Cernăuţi, seeing him as a prime candidate for the position. Popovici initially refused the offer as collaborating with a fascist dictator went against his ideals but after some persuasion from his friends, he accepted the position seeing that more good than bad would come out of him being in such a spot.

Antonescu and Adolf Hitler at the Führerbau in Munich (June 1941). Courtesy of the Bundesarchiv.

Mere days after his appointment as the mayor of Cernăuţi Antonescu’s puppet in the local government started to push fascist ideals upon the lawyer. He was ordered the creation of a ghetto for the city’s Jewish population. Popovici bravely stood up to the local governor, risking his life by refusing to complete a task which could harm the people he was meant to look after.

Due to his lack of anti-semitism, something looked down upon back then, he would receive the nickname of ‘Jidovitul’, meaning “the turned-Jewish”. Popovici continued to refuse to act upon the anti-semitic policies of the country and the local governor, even so, there was a point where he could only minimise the damage rather than stop it.

1941

In 1941 the new governor of the Bukovina area decreed that all of the Jews of Cernăuţi should be deported to a camp in Transnistria. Knowing that Popovici would be hard to persuade to complete such a task, the governor allowed him to pick 200 Jews which would be exempt from this deportation.

Although he knew that he could save 200 people from certain death, Popovici was not happy. He thought that he could get a much bigger concession from the governor. To achieve this Popovici met up with Antonescu himself and argued that the Jewish members of the Cernăuţi community were vital to the war effort due to the labour they provided in the factories of the city.

After risking his life to stand up for the people he governed Popovici succeded. Antonescu allowed him to keep 20,000 Jews in the city of Cernăuţi, the rest had to be deported as agreed upon before. The 20,000 Jews that Popovici saved would live until the end of the war, protected by their ‘vitality’ to the economy of the city.

Although Popovici died shortly after the war ended on 4 June 1946 at the age of 53, his fight for the Jewish people of Cernăuţi paid off. Later he was recognised by the Israeli World Holocaust Remembrance Center with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations. A title reserved to non-Jewish people who protected the Jewish community from persecution during the Second World War, a title he shares with people such as the famous Oskar Schindler.

Soviet SU-SU-76M riding past a destroyed German 88mm antiaircraft gun (a.k.a. 8,8 cm Flak 37) during the liberation of Chernivtsi in March 1944. Courtesy of Военный альбом.

All of us can learn from Popovici’s foolhardy attitude. His unwillingness to sell out his humanity for power is something that was rarely see displayed during the Second World Was and as such should be commended and remembered. The attitude of putting others before yourself, also known as being selfless, should be something all of us learn from. After all in such an interconnected world, we depend on each other more than ever before.