August 8,
2007
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM
-- Israel's Holocaust museum on Wednesday posthumously
honored a Romanian reserves officer who blocked the
deportation of Romanian Jews to Nazi death
camps.
Theodor
Criveanu was inducted into Yad Vashem's "Righteous Among
the Nations" group of non-Jews who rescued Jews from the
Nazis. His son, Willie Criveanu, accepted the award on
his behalf.
Six
million European Jews were killed by German Nazis and
their collaborators during World War II.
The
20,000 Jews of Czernowitz, Romania, were interned during
the war and slated for deportation to death
camps.
As a
reserves officer in the Romanian army, Criveanu was
assigned the task of presenting authorities a list of
Jews who were required to work in the ghetto, and were
thus spared deportation. According to testimonies given
to Yad Vashem, Criveanu risked his own life by handing
out permits beyond the allowed limit, including to Jews
who were not essential to the work force. Yad Vashem said
it could not estimate how many Jews he
saved.
Criveanu
married the daughter of one of the Jews he saved. He died
in Romania in 1988.
"My
father's life was based on justness, correctness. He was
a great humanitarian, that was his nature," his son said
at the ceremony. "He was a gift from God for my mother's
family and to so many more."
More
than 21,000 non-Jews have been honored by Yad Vashem,
including Oskar Schindler, whose efforts to save more
than 1,000 Jews was documented in the Oscar-award-winning
film "Schindler's List." Of these, 53 Romanians have been
honored.
.