BETHEL — The Western Mountains Senior College will present the husband-wife team of Irving “Ike” Isaacson and Judith Magyar Isaacson for the next in its Down Home Maine series, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, upstairs at the Bethel Congregational Church.

The Isaacsons’ story began during World War II, when Irving was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA. His assignment was to parachute behind enemy lines with a little printing press strapped to his back, scrounge for paper and then print propaganda to demoralize German troops. The plan was scrapped because of the rapid Allied advance after D-Day.

As chronicled in his autobiography, “Memoirs of an Amateur Spy,” Irving Isaacson’s war and postwar duties then turned to learn-as-you-go intelligence gathering and rudimentary espionage. He smuggled agents and propaganda behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Europe and became the first OSS spy to gather Soviet intelligence in the emerging Cold War.

Judith Magyar Isaacson was born in Hungary in 1925. When she was 19, her family was deported to Auschwitz­Birkenau, where her grandmothers and an aunt were gassed upon arrival. From there, Judith, her mother and her aunt were sent to a slave labor camp.

They lost the rest of their family in the Holocaust, including Judith’s father, but miraculously, the three women were liberated together by American forces in 1945. Judith met Irving a month later. They married that year and came to the United States in 1946.

Widely celebrated for her “Seed of Sarah: Memoirs of a Survivor,” Judith Magyar Isaacson is an educator and former Bates College dean, author, champion of equal opportunity for women and human-rights advocate whose passion was forged by her experiences in the Holocaust.

Western Mountains Senior College offers multi-session courses, workshops, outdoor activities, special events and social gatherings to members aged 50 and over. The Down Home Maine series features unique and adventurous people from the community. Programs are open to the public free of charge; donations are accepted to offset senior college expenses.

Light refreshments will be available. For more information, contact program chair, Peter Gartner, at 665-2181.