Award-winning Jazz pianist and composer, Charles Segal (pianist) was born in Joniškis in 1929. In the early 1930s, to escape the approaching Holocaust, his mother, Riva Segal, bringing her two young sons, Louis Segal and Charles Segal (pianist) left Joniskis. Riva Segal also brought from Joniškis, her half sister and family, including their three sons, the youngest of whom was Hirske Skikne, who later became known as Oscar nominated actor, Lawrence Harvey. The extended family left Joniškis together and travelled to Hamburg, Germany, to board the Adolph Woermann headed for Cape Town, South Africa.