Hartford Seminary president co-writes book about Holocaust
In a new book, “Mitka’s Secret,” Hartford Seminary President Joel Lohr helps retell some of the darkest horrors of the Holocaust, sorted from the memories of a very young child. The book recounts the life of Mitka Kalinski, who survived the concentration camps as a little boy, was enslaved by a Nazi officer for seven years, then was freed and emigrated to the United States.
Lohr will give a presentation about the book, in-person and virtual, on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. from Mandell JCC of Greater Hartford in West Hartford. Lohr, with co-authors Steven W. Brallier and Lynn G. Beck, will have a conversation with Uconn Judaic Studies Prof. Avinoam Patt. A book signing will precede the event, at 6 p.m. Admission is $25 for a ticket and a copy of the book and $10 for just a ticket.
Brallier is the primary author of “Mitka’s Secret.” Beck and Lohr researched what was possible to find about Kalinski’s identity. Kalinsky’s own recollections were sketchy. He was a small child when his ordeal began. He never learned to read, so his contribution to the research was what he could remember. Still, a lot of vital information — names of relatives and his hometown, etc. — was buried beyond reach.
“We did as best we could. It was quite the process to go through all of his memories,” Lohr said. “We don’t know exact birthdate because we can’t verify who his mother was. So he can’t get reparations from the German government. They are eager to give them to him but they have a very strict standard.”
The book tells Kalinski’s story based on his remembrances and the group’s research. One of his earliest flashbacks was of a massacre. “Oh, that noise. It was not pleasant to hear that noise. People were lined up and then they started falling. I fell too. People fell on top of me and pushed me along with them. Bodies buried me.”
He believes it was the notorious Ukrainian bloodbath Babi Yar. That can’t be verified.
Wandering from the killing field, he found a camp of German soldiers, who put him in a cattle car with adults. On that trip, Kalinski learned a new word: Birkenau. Once there, “the only memories I have are of being hungry,” he said. “I could sit on a dead body and eat a meal.” He was given a job making bricks, which were used at the camp. “Could these hands have helped build the ovens?,” he asks.
Later he was transferred to Buchenwald — where he saw adults being hanged — and then to Dachau, where he recalls seeing the famous entrance sign, “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Then he was moved to a lesser-known camp, Lager Pfaffenwald, where he was subjected to medical experiments.
From Pfaffenwald, he was taken in by Gustav Dorr, a Nazi officer, to be a slave at his farm. He lived there — doing hard labor every day, being fed pig slop, sleeping in a room with barred windows — until 1949.
After he was freed and moved to America, Kalinski, dubbed Tim, took steps to hide his illiteracy. His buried trauma sometimes manifested itself in confused decisions. And he never told anyone about the life he led before emigrating. He lived a peaceful and productive life — marriage, kids, jobs, a car, a house — until he couldn’t stand to keep his secret any more.
Kalinski, who lives in Nevada, didn’t embrace his Jewishness until his senior years, even though his life was defined by the tragic events during and after World War II.
“He lived most of his life as a non-jew but he always knew he was a Jew. He hid that part of his identity until his bar mitzvah in his 70s,” Lohr said. “This is someone who can’t read and write. He couldn’t identify with Judaism. … Later he acknowledged and adopted his Jewish heritage and welcomed it.”
Today, Kalinski is in his late 80s, and is happy with his life, Lohr said, and he tells his story far and wide.
“Something extraordinary happens every time I’m at an event with Mitka. People are moved by his sense of joy for life, his fulfillment, his sense of being content with who he is,” Lohr said. “There’s a theme throughout the book that at a very important moment in his life a voice speaks to him, he thinks it’s God, that says ‘In the end, you will find your purpose.’
“We felt as authors we didn’t want to say what that purpose was,” he said. “I feel like his purpose is to bless people with his life. He has every reason to have hate in his heart against those who hurt him, but instead he chose the way of love.”
To buy tickets to Lohr’s book talk, visit mandelljcc.org/tix.