Pavels Ekab & Zelma

Pavels, Ekab Pavela, Zelma In 1941 Ekab Pavels, who was a tailor, lived in Liepaja and temporarily worked as a janitor in the Evangelists’ Prayer House on Karolinski Street. His wife Zelma worked in the same place as a cleaning woman. One evening in December 1941, when the Germans already occupied Liepaja, Karlis Eilenberg, the prayer house conductor, came to work accompanied by Isaak Klavanski, a Jewish baker. After his escape from under arrest Klavanski led illegal life and was searched by Gestapo. The rescuers pitied the man and agreed to his temporary stay in the attic of the Prayer House. The arrangement was first made for two weeks, but then prolonged and in the end Klavanski remained in that place for nearly two years. In the afternoon, when the believers had their gatherings, he remained in the attic; at night the Jewish man would come down, heat the stove, chop woods and clean the court. Being a handyman, he could repair almost everything. Late in the evenings, after Ekab would lock the gates, Klavanski used to join him and Zelma for dinner. It was of great importance for him to hear news from the outside world. From the Pavelses he learnt about the Liepaja ghetto establishment, at the beginning of July 1942, and it’s liquidation in October 1943. In late fall of 1943 Ekab and Zelma moved to the countryside since food became scarce in the city. Once a week they packed some products and sent it to Karlis Eilenberg, who in turn, would share that supply with the Jew in hiding. Another person that helped in providing Klavanski was the caretaker of the Prayer House, Mrs. Venzvagare. The arrangement could have lasted until the end of the war but a bombshell hit the Prayer House and ruined it. Klavanski miraculously survived. Left without shelter, he decided to move to the east, towards the front line. His former neighbors dressed him in peasants clothes and bought him a train ticket to the town of Ventspils. Since the Pavelses were residing not far fromthat town, Klavanski set off to see them. The following morning he was arrested in their court, probably denounced by a neighbor. He did not look Jewish and his looks saved him: after the police came to the conclusion he was not a partisan, Klavanski was sent to a POW camp under the assumed name of Sergey Smirnov. Later he was sent to Germany as a forced laborer. He survived to see the liberation, returned to Liepaja and was reunited with his wife and sons, whom he had lost at the beginning of the war. From 1946 Isaak Klavanski worked as a confectioner in Liepaja. He wrote memoirs, and described things he had witnessed during the Nazi occupation and the circumstances of his own survival that were published after his death. On December 17, 2006 Yad Vashem recognized Ekab and Zelma Pavels as Righteous Among the Nations.