Born in Greece, Michail Karavokyros lived in the Latvian capital Riga with his Jewish wife Feiga and their two children Maria and Socrates. He owned a candy factory.
German troops invaded Riga in 1941. The occupiers and their Latvian collaborators immediately began persecuting Jews. To counter this threat, Karavokyros built up an aid network for Jewish people. He asked several of his employees and other acquaintances for help. Walentina Sidiropoulou, Emīlija Gajevska, and Marija Karčevska helped him to hide Jews and provide them with food. The people they helped included relatives of his wife Feiga, such as her niece Riva Šefere. In 1942 Karavokyros was falsely denounced as Jewish, arrested, and taken to the ghetto. Efforts by Greek and Italian diplomats achieved his release after a short period. The family left Riga in the summer of 1943. Since the Karavokyros family also held Italian citizenship, they were able to flee to Trieste and survive there.
Michail Karavokyros was honored as Righteous Among the Nations in 1994.