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Mitka’s Secret: A True Story of Child Slavery and Surviving the Holocaust
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About Mitka’s Secret: A True Story Of Child Slavery And
Product Description The remarkable life story of Mitka Kalinski, who survived seven years of enslavement—while still a child—to a Nazi officer during and after World War II Mitka Kalinski had never revealed his past to anyone. Not even to his wife or his four children. But in 1981, three decades after it had all ended, Mitka finally broke his silence about the horrors he had endured during the Holocaust and in the years immediately afterward: not only German concentration camps and sadistic medical experiments but also seven years of enslavement in the household of a Nazi officer, “Iron” Gustav Dörr. Having been orphaned before the war, Mitka did not know his origins or even his name. Torture, slavery, and a false name stripped him of his identity entirely. Thus, when he immigrated to the United States in 1951, Mitka seized the opportunity to bury his past and forge a new life. He lived the American life in all its fullness and moved to Nevada with his beloved wife, Adrienne, and their children. But the secret he carried became an increasingly heavy burden, preventing wholeness and healing. This is Mitka’s account of facing the past, confronting his captors, connecting with lost relatives, and finding peace in the rediscovery of his origins. For Mitka, this also meant reclaiming his Jewish heritage—a journey that gave him a new sense of purpose and freedom from the lingering effects of trauma that had filled his life to that point. By the end, Mitka’s Secret is less a story of survival and more one of redemption and transformation—from hidden suffering to abundant joy. Review Publishers Weekly “Mitka’s remarkable story harrowingly demonstrates the horrors and personal repercussions of the Holocaust.” “For us to make ‘Never Again’ a reality when it comes to horrors like the Holocaust, we must read and remember inspiring stories like this. I recommend this book to all who want a more intimate knowledge of human history and to be moved by a story of hope and survival.” — Eboo Patel author of Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise “ Mitka’s Secret is very different from any Holocaust book I have ever read. The horrors of the first part are very painful to read, but after that it becomes a fascinating tale of how one can recover from the most horrendous experiences when you have a loving partner by your side. It also has a beautiful ending when the hero of the story finds his roots, his family, and his faith.” — Eva Schloss Holocaust survivor, humanitarian, and speaker stepsister of Anne Frank and author of Eva’s Story “A most powerful life story of a child survivor of the Holocaust and his way from a children’s home in Ukraine to America. This book demonstrates that child survivors were not only passive objects of German crimes but also active individuals. After Mitka had somehow survived the shootings in the East and had managed to stay alive in different camps, he was taken to Rotenburg an der Fulda. While Mitka’s memory before arriving in this small German town at the end of 1942 is marked by a few blurred flashbacks only, it now changes into a coherent and detailed narrative about life as a child forced laborer in Nazi Germany, the lifelong impact of trauma, and the healing process of telling this incredible story.” — Johannes-Dieter Steinert author of Holocaust und Zwangsarbeit: Erinnerungen jüdischer Kinder 1938–1945, winner of the 2020 Yad Vashem International Book Prize for Holocaust Research “Mitka’s life is the ‘journey of a soul’ filled with tragedy yet transformative enough to inspire and seek the truth.” — Rabbi Anchelle Perl Chabad of Mineola, New York “Millions of children died during the Second World War. They died from the ordinary violence of war as well as the starvation and disease that follow in war’s wake. Millions of those children were Jewish. But they were murdered by cold calculation based on a racist ideology that persists to this day. They were
