Boris

Boris Kastel was born in Zagreb, Croatia in 1914. A few months later the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated some 300 kilometers away in Sarajevo, an act which touched off “The Great War.” That catastrophic event presages Boris’ tumultuous life, during which he traveled to five continents and mastered at least ten languages. Throughout the violent war years following the Nazi invasion of his country, he never lost sight of his great dream—a quest for peace. That quest had to wait through the long years of World War II, when duty called him first to the mountains of Northern Italy with the Italian Underground, and then to Tito’s Partisans and life in nascent Yugoslavia. That quest was realized in a most unexpectedly beautiful way. His story takes us from war-torn Zagreb to post-revolution China, to Ghandi’s India, through the birth of kibbutzim in Palestine, summer and winter Olympics in 1936, the resistance movements in Italy and Yugoslavia, Nazi hunting in Argentina and Uruguay, and ultimately to New York, where he met Eva, and the peace for which he yearned.