Marija Karčevska and her husband Jusefs Karčevskis lived in the center of Riga. The couple were janitors for the building they lived in, and had access to a number of vacant apartments there.
In the summer of 1944, Valentīna Freimane asked if the Karčevskis could take her in. She was Jewish, hiding from the German occupiers, and had previously been supported by Marija Karčevska’s sister Emīlija Gajevska. Marija and Jusefs Karčevskis hid Freimane in one of the empty apartments. In another, they housed Samuil and Riva Šefere, and Nina and Harry Barinbaum. Marija Karčevska and Emīlija Gajevska took care of the persecuted Jews and provided them with food.
Shortly after that, a number of homes in the center of Riga were searched. The building where the Karčevskis lived was also searched by Latvian police officers. The five people hiding there were not discovered. They all remained in contact with their rescuers after Riga’s liberation in October 1944.
Marija Karčevska was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 1994.