“I was born in the midst of World War I on November 11, 1914, in the carriage of a train, someplace in Hungary.” Thus begins Isidore Karten’s fascinating life story, from an idyllic Shtetl childhood in Swirz, Eastern Galicia, through the hardship of the Soviet occupation, and the German troops marching into town in July 1941. The Germans established the ghetto in Bobrka, and in December 1942, the remainder of the local Jews were ordered into the ghetto. Isidore and his brother made the difficult decision to leave their family behind and joined the Jewish partisans in the Swirz Forest. Isidore spent time going from ghetto to ghetto, calling upon young people to come to the forest to fight. It was on a visit to the Bobrka ghetto that he met his wife to be, Julia, who finally decided to escape to the forest and join the partisans. Isidore and Julia were married in the forest. Two witnesses signed the Ketubah and he gave her a ring, which Julia kept for the next 47 years.
