Description: "The remarkable life story of Mitka Kalinski, who, while still a child, survived the Holocaust and seven years of enslavement to a Nazi officer, then began a new life in the United States and revealed his secret past decades later"--
Brief description:
Joel N. Lohr is president of Hartford Seminary, a leading interfaith graduate school. He is an award-winning author, scholar of religion, and passionate leader in interreligious relations and higher education. His teaching and research have focused on the Bible, specifically the Torah (or Pentateuch), as well as Jewish- Christian relations and dialogue. He has published ten books, with both academic and popular publishers.
Review Quotes: Religious Studies Review
"A well-researched, clearly written biography about courage in the face of racial discrimination that all readers can appreciate. With the rise of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in contemporary times, Mitka's Secret is an especially important story."
"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 shot, burned alive, hung, starved, and worked to death. This is the riveting account of a rare survivor of this brutal regime. It is also a story of thriving in a new land, building a life and a family, and then seeking to come to terms with a haunting past. Mitka's Secret will stay with you, trouble you, move you, and give you hope."
-- John E. Phelan Jr.
author of Separated Siblings: An Evangelical Understanding of Jews and Judaism "In this well-written, well-researched story, the reader lives with a solitary little Jewish boy in the house of a German family in World War II, dressed in rags, often bitterly cold, always hungry, doing heavy work in the fields or lying alone at night in the dark, totally ignorant of the outside world. The constant fear of the unknown, the arbitrary punishments, the minuscule pleasures that co