Juozas Petrulis was one of the employees of the Šiauliai "Dawn" Museum, which has more than 100 years of history and has made a significant contribution to the promotion and preservation of Lithuanian culture, traditions and heritage. The museum's Ethnographic Archive, which in 2006 was included in the Lithuanian National Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme due to its exceptional cultural value, contains a large number of materials, descriptions, drawings about the old Lithuanian lifestyle, ethnography, culture and heritage collected by J. Petrulis. What could still be recorded at that time was recorded and preserved thanks to such dedicated people. For today's researchers and for all of us, this is invaluable material that gives us an insight into the lives of our ancestors. However, it must be remembered that Petrulis worked at the Museum in difficult times, when material, cultural and spiritual conditions were difficult, and difficult choices had to be made. So there is another extremely bright side to this man - his noble and honourable deeds - helping Jews during the Second World War. He hardly talked about these deeds himself, he did not boast about them, and he did not regard them as something special, but as simple humanity.

Juozas Petrulis was born on 23 April 1904 in Rudikiai (Kupiškis district).

His three sisters grew up together in the family. As Petrulis himself later recounted, "At the age of 7 or 8, I joined a shepherd's association. Every day I alternated between grazing horses, hornbills, sheep, pigs and geese in the vastness of the village fields", and the people around him told him all sorts of interesting stories about giants, the sacred fire and so on. This pushed the young Juozas into a close relationship with his land and the past of his homeland, "with the smells of the smokehouse and the herbs blooming under the windows, the child was inevitably drawn to the soul by the unique atmosphere of his parents' yard, his mother's songs, the neighbours', the trees' and the birds' language. All this nurtured, without words, a great love for one's own land, a great desire, which eventually turned into a clearly understood goal - to be useful to one's native land and its people." Juozas' mother, Veronika Greičiūnaitė-Petrulienė, was a Daraktor. She was a teacher at a secret Lithuanian school in Rudikiai. She taught her son Juozas to read from a very young age, and later on she enrolled him in the Salamiestis primary school.

Juozas graduated from the Kupiškis Pro-Gymnasium, and later studied at the Biržai Gymnasium. Already in gymnasium, encouraged by his teacher, he started collecting folklore. In 1921, the newspaper "Lietuvos ūkininkas" (Lithuanian Farmer) published the stories he had collected and written down of old village people. Petrulis enrolled at the University of Lithuania, but did not complete his studies. The young man was also socially active. He was one of the founders of the "Žiburys" branch of the Lithuanian Youth Union ("jaunimietis") in Salamiestis, and also its secretary. The motto of the Youth was "be educated and educate". The organisation aimed to involve young people in cultural and social activities, to encourage them to educate themselves, to promote democratic and tolerant ideas, and Petrulis joined the Tolstoyists, who were active in Lithuania at that time, and who were based on the views and philosophy of the writer Leo Tolstoy, who were looking for a quiet and peaceful life. The views of the Tolstoyists also led to Petrulis being a vegetarian and against the killing of animals. As Pranė Tamošiūnienė, the wife of his nephew, whose house Juozas used to visit, said: "When he came from Vilnius in early spring, he used to cook various dishes himself from spear grass, sorrel and other herbs". In 1926, when Petrulis was called up to serve in the army, he refused, declaring that "I consider the presence of the army and military service to be contrary and incompatible with my conscience". For this he was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Petrulis served this sentence in Kaunas, Panevėžys and Šiauliai prisons. However, he did not spend his time idly at that time. He worked in the prison's bookshop. He became interested in Esperanto, translated texts from Esperanto into Lithuanian, collected words for the Lithuanian dictionary, as well as for the Lithuanian and Esperanto dictionary. Petrulis was released in 1933. He returned to his local studies. In 1934, Petrulis went to Italy, where he nursed a sick relative and studied. However, when his mother fell ill, Petrulis returned to Lithuania. During his stay in Italy, he broadened his horizons by familiarising himself with the country's cultural monuments, which only encouraged him to think even more about the cultural heritage of his native country. In 1938, P. Bugailiškis invited J. Petrulis to work at the Šiauliai "Aušra" Museum. Petrulis was responsible for the accounting and description of the museum's treasures, as well as for the restoration and conservation of exhibits. Petrulis was also involved in the activities of the Šiauliai Society of Local History, and became the editorial secretary of the publication "Gimtasai krastas". A large collection of materials collected by J. Petrulis is also kept in the Lithuanian National Martynas Mažvydas Library.

During the Nazi occupation, Petrulis was determined to rescue Jews in a very difficult situation. Together with his close friends, he gave food to ghetto prisoners, helped some of them to escape and find a safe place to hide. As he later modestly remarked, "I was only able to save two families from dishonour and death. I do not know the fate of the others, although I gave many of them addresses where they could be safe." His closest collaborators in this affair were the Vilandas, Levinskas, Aleknas and Kalendras families.

Petrulis was also approached by Riva Trusfusaitė-Jofienė, a doctor from Šiauliai, who asked him to rescue her children in the Šiauliai ghetto: her five-year-old son Moshe, her six-year-old daughter Ruta, her sister Eta, and her 68-year-old mother. Petrulis took them in and later arranged for them to be hidden with trusted persons in the Mažeikiai and Joniškis districts, and with Paulina and Povilas Aleknas from Kupiškis. Eta had not known Petrulis before, but during the Nazi occupation he took her and her relatives in to live in his flat in Šiauliai until another shelter was found for them. Eta's sister's infant daughter stayed longer in Petrulis' home. Until rumours began to circulate that Petrulis was hiding Jews. After finding another place for the girl in the village, he left Šiauliai himself when the German police started looking for him. Petrulis was a man who remained true to his principles. He chose his values in life and had certain attitudes, and he followed them, regardless of unfavourable circumstances, difficult situations or the price that had to be paid for them.

The text is based on Vilma Karinauskienė's article "Juozas Petrulis. A Museum Worker Committed to an Extraordinary Mission" from the publication "Kupiškėnai - Rescuers of Jews".