Pop Nicolaie & Maria ; Daughter: Saileanu Aristina (Pop)

Pop, Nicolaie Pop, Maria Săileanu (Pop), Aristina Nicolaie Pop, a prosperous, hardworking villager, lived in the village of Lăpuşul Românesc (Oláhlápos) in Northern Transylvania. He was the chief forester of the area, and was one of the village’s most respected men. Although he had a house in the village, he spent most of his time with his wife and six children in a spacious home in the forest, and used his village home only on weekends. There was a small Jewish community in Lăpuşul, one of whose leaders was Samuel Dub. His only daughter Hanna was married to Baruch Mendel Marmor, a young man from Maramureş, and together they set up a sawmill in the village. A mutual esteem developed between Pop and Dub because the two had worked together for years with trees and lumber. In 1944, Hanna Marmor had three children, Shoshana (later Armon), eight, Esther (later Michaeli), six, and Yom Tov, three. Her husband had been conscripted to a Hungarian military labor-service battalion, and was not at home. After the German army occupied Hungary, on March 19, 1944, Pop came to Dub and his daughter and told them he had heard rumors that all the Jews would soon be rounded up and confined to ghettos. He offered to hide Hanna and her children and provide them with all their needs. On April 29, 1944, Marmor, her children, and her father, who went along to help her, journeyed to a hiding place prepared for them by Pop. They were accompanied by his 12-year-old daughter Aristina, who led them through side paths in the village and then in the forest. In addition to Marmor, her children and her father, three other Jews who had fled to the forest with Pop’s help, found shelter in the hiding place. Her mother, who felt that she could not withstand the rigors of living in the forest, remained behind and was deported to Auschwitz, where she perished. Pop’s wife, Maria, and Aristina brought food and milk to the Jews in the hiding place, and Aristina played with the children. On August 13,1944, the hiding place was discovered by Hungarian gendarmes, but Marmor’s father managed to escape. Marmor was sent to Budapest, and her children were taken from her. After her liberation in January 1945, she found her children and returned home. Her husband returned in 1948, and the family immigrated to Israel in 1962. Nikolaie Pop went into hiding in 1948 while protecting a Romanian priest and was killed in 1950. On July 7, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Nicolaie and Maria Pop, and their daughter, Aristina Săileanu as Righteous Among the Nations.