Paulavičius Jonas & Paulavičienė Antanina ; Son: Kęstutis ; Daughter: Paulavičiūtė Danutė

Paulavičius, Jonas Paulavičienė, Antanina Paulavičiūtė, Danutė Paulavičius, Kęstutis The carpenter Jonas Paulavičius lived in Panemune, a suburb of Kaunas, just across the Niemon River, with his wife, Antanina Paulavičienė, and their children, 16-year-old Danutė and 14-year-old Kęstutis. An ardent opponent of the Nazi regime, Jonas Paulavičius had developed close ties with Lithuanian communists before the war. When a Lithuanian friend approached him one day and asked him to shelter a four-year-old Jewish boy, Paulavičius willingly agreed. After consulting his wife, Paulavičius took the child, Shimele Shames, into his home and later decided also to give shelter to his parents, Yitzhak and Lena Shames and his grandmother. Together with his son Kęstutis, Paulavičius dug a hiding place under the floor of his home, where the Shameses hid. Aware of the distress of the Jews interned in the Kaunas ghetto, Paulavičius decided to save as many as possible. He began arranging meetings with Jews in the ghetto and inviting them to hide in his home. At the same time, the Paulavičiuses expanded the room under their home, and towards the end of the German occupation, they prepared an additional hiding place. Among the 12 Jews hiding there were the four members of the Shames family, including grandmother Feinsilver; the doctors Tania and Chaim Ipp; Aharon Neimark and his wife, Mania (later Gershenman); David Rubin; Yohanan Fein; as well as Miriam Krakinowski, and Riva Katavushnik, whom Paulavičius managed to save from a labor camp just before it was liquidated. Even after the war, Paulavičius managed to obtain a large sum of money for the Neimarks, to enable them to leave Lithuania and immigrate to Israel. In 1952, Paulavičius was murdered by his antisemitic neighbor, who never forgave him helping Jews during the occupation. On March 7, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Jonas Paulavičius, Antanina Paulavičienė, Danutė Paulavičiūtė, and Kęstutis Paulavičius as Righteous Amongthe Nations.