Karavokiros Mikhail

Karavokiros, Mikhail Binkevich (Sidiropoulou), Valentina Gajevska, Emīlija Karčevska, Marija Mikhail Karavokiros, born in 1893, on the island of Rhodes, settled in Rīga after World War I, and in the early 1930s married Feiga Dolgizer, a local Jewish woman. He owned a little candy shop that specialized in Oriental sweets. From the beginning of the German occupation, on July 1, 1941, Karavokiros helped his wife’s relatives and Jewish friends. He believed that his wife and two children were safe under the protection of both the Italian embassy and the Greek community of Rīga. From the end of 1941 he hid Feiga’s niece and nephew, Riva and Samuil (Muta) Shepher in his house, and helped provide food to their mother, Maria Shepher (née Dolgizer), Nina Barinbaum (née Dolgizer), her husband Harry and their young son Gideon, as well as his other Jewish friends who remained in the Rīga ghetto. Once he hid Benish Barinbaum, a child of the Barinbaum family relatives, at his friends' place. Karavokiros also turned to other reliable people to help Jews. Thus, in 1942, he transferred Riva Shepher to Valentina Sidiropoulou (b. 1915) a Greek-Latvian, who used to work in his candy shop. Valentina was not much older than Riva and they became good friends. Riva occasionally hid at Valentina’s house for several days at a time. On October 28, 1942, Valentina and her parents were arrested for helping escaped Soviet POWs. Luckily Riva was hiding elsewhere when it happened. They were thrown in jail and then sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where Valentina’s parents perished. Valentina survived and returned to Rīga after the war. At the beginning of 1943, the Karavokiros family was interned in the ghetto but soon released thanks to the Greek community’s intervention. They left for Italy soon after, where they all survived to witness the liberation. In 1944, Riva and Samuil Shepher, as well as their aunt Nina and uncle Harry, were sheltered by Emīlija Gajevska and hersister Marija Karčevska, devout Catholics. The latter worked as the custodian of a large building. She secretly lodged the Jews in an abandoned flat, where they were not allowed to make any noise. Marija and Emīlija brought them food there and cared for their basic needs. When the place became unsafe (some Jews in hiding were found in the area), the Shephers and the Barinbaums fled. After the liberation, on October 13, 1944, the rescued kept in touch with their rescuers. On December 13, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Mikhail Karavokiros, Valentina Binkevich (née Sidiropoulou), Emīlija Gajevska and Marija Karčevska, as Righteous Among the Nations.