Traian Popovici was born in Rușii-Mănăstioara and was the son of a priest. He completed his doctorate in law in Czernowitz (Chernivtsi) in 1919 and went on to work as a lawyer.
The persecution of Czernowitz’s approximately 43,000 Jews began in 1941. As mayor of Czernowitz, Popovici attempted to mitigate the consequences of the Jewish population’s dispossession and exclusion. He protested in 1941 against the establishment of a ghetto and the Jewish inhabitants’ deportation to Transnistria. Following an intervention by Popovici with the governor of Bukovina, Calotescu, several thousand deportations were halted. The rescued Jews were allowed to stay in the city temporarily, as necessary workers. Popovici hid the Jewish Tuttman family in his office.
At the end of 1941 Traian Popovici lost his seat as mayor. After liberation, Popovici was persecuted by the new Romanian government. In 1969 he was the first Romanian to be honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.