Mitka's Secret

My heart goes out to all the survivors. The torture and inhuman ordeals they went through is heartbreaking.

Poor Mitka, an orphaned kid made to be a slave and endure horrible things no kid should go through. I am glad he was able to move on the best he could.

Mitka’s Secret by Steven W. Brallier with Joel N. Lohr and Lynn G. Beck. I received access to this book through NetGalley and it is set to be published in July of 2021. I was first drawn to the title and the cover, and when I found it was a true story beginning during World War II I knew I wanted to read it. My Grandfather served in World War II and that time fascinates me greatly.

During and after World War II Mitka Kalinski survived orphanages, concentration camps, mass executions, and enslavement – all alone and before the age of 18. Mitka was of Jewish faith, and was forced to serve a Nazi officer as a slave before being rescued by American GIs and transferred to America. Once in America, Mitka was able to begin a new life working hard labor. He hid his past well and got along just fine even though he could not speak English, read, or write. He met his wife early in life, and as they made a home for themselves and their four children Mitka kept his past a secret. Almost three decades after Mitka came to America, he began having severe nightmares, depression, and anxiety. He finally decided it was time to tell his wife what had happened.

This is Mitka’s story from his earliest memories of being orphaned, not knowing his parents, and not even knowing his true name to living his American life in all its fullness, finally confronting his past and digging for the truth, and reclaiming his Jewish heritage. What begins as a story of survival, turns into one of redemption and growth.

Personally, I had the privilege of growing up in small town America without a worry in the world. I had present parents, a brother and sister, and too many friends to count. We had everything we needed and more. I’ve always been interested in WWII as my grandfather served in the war and I’ve heard too many stories to count. Besides the front line stories by Grandfather used to tell, what gets me the most are the stories that came out of the concentration camps. We had a couple presentations when I was in high school from survivors, and I have their autographed books on my shelf still. There is no describing the suffering, and I can’t even begin to understand, but I love books like these because they present learning opportunities I might not get otherwise.

While I have read other books on the subject, I absolutely love how this one is so in depth on Mitka’s life after being rescued and coming to America. I can’t even begin to imagine growing up not knowing where you were born, when, who your parents are, if you have siblings, etc. I also find it so strange to put myself in his shoes and thinking that my earliest memories are of mass executions and making bricks that would eventually be used to make furnaces where my friends would be burned to death. Then you go from that to being a slave for a single Nazi officer and all you know of being human is being hungry and cold and working yourself to the bone only to get beaten at night for no reason. That is literally how you think life is supposed to be. And not only to grow up that way, but then to get taken away from there and asked by other people why you don’t act and behave like a normal kid? And then, to be sent off to the United States where you basically just have to figure out how to be an adult like everyone else – not speaking the language, or knowing how to read and write?

If there is ever a day your find yourself mad over silly little things, pick up this book. If you ever think your life is so terrible because you only live in a $200,000 house and not a $500,000 house, pick up this book. If you think you aren’t living the American dream because you only get to eat out three times a week, pick up this book. This book is a reminder that if you have a warm place to live, food on your table, and family surrounding you, be grateful as there are folks out there that would do anything to have even one of those things!

On a slightly more technical note, I’m not giving this book a full 5 stars. While I loved the story itself, I felt like the writing was a bit dry at times. Very he said and then she said and then he said, and the feeling was lost on me during those portions.

4 stars
Content Warning: War, holocaust, slavery, starvation, child abuse, violence, death

Mitka's Secret is the incredible story of resilience of a boy named Mitka who has no roots. From an incredibly young age he faced nightmare after nightmare as he endured enslavement during the Holocaust. While he survives these horrific events, they impact his future forever.

Brallier, Lohr, and Beck take the retelling of Mitka's story very seriously. The attention to detail and respect for the story is apparent in the writing. At times I felt like the account of Mitka's story was so to-the-point that it lacked a certain passion. I felt for Mitka because what he faced unimaginable challenges, but not because the writing pulled the emotion out of me.

This story is an important one because while I've read several books that cover the events that occurred during the Holocaust, not many cover how the events impact survivor's futures.

This is an incredible biography - thank you to Mitka for finding the bravery to share his story and to the authors for bringing Mitka's story to life.

This story broke my heart and all I wanted to do was hug young Mitka, yet I couldn't stop reading it. Reading Mitka's Secret was hard, I wanted to put it down because I felt sad, scared, and hopeless for the young boy and the horrific experiences he endured. Yet, I knew that was part of the purpose of this book, and Mitka's unwavering spirit and incredible perseverance gives me hope.

This story is part narrative, part history lesson, and reminded me of how raw I felt when I first read Eli Wiesel's book Night many years ago. This is a story that will stay with you and may haunt you, but I hope it reminds other readers (as it did for me) of the resiliency of human nature and the impact that compassion and belonging has. If this story could replace history textbooks, I believe we would live in a more compassionate world.

What a story! Mitka's story will make you cringe, the story will make your heart hurt, and it will make you think.

Beautifully written.

What a wonderfully tragic story with some light of survival. I will never tire of reading the accounts of the Holocaust by the people who suffered in the camps or feared for their lives daily. I am so grateful that Mitka decided to come forward with his story.

Honoured to be telling Mitka’s story, Steven W. Brallier, Joel N. Lohr, and Lynn G. Beck, have recorded the remarkable true account of Mitka Kalinski who survived enslavement to a Nazi officer during and after World War Two.

After enduring nightmares, depression and anxiety for decades, Mitka Kalinski finally revealed the tightly kept secret that had been gnawing away at him; he was a holocaust survivor. Nobody, not even his wife, knew details of his youth. In fact, Mitka is still trying to make sense of them.

As he understands it, his father left, presumably to war, and his mother, believing it was the best course of action, took him to the safest place she knew, a kinderheim, an orphanage. He doesn’t know how long he was there but remembers that fateful day in the autumn of 1941 when army trucks arrived outside the orphanage and all the children were ordered to get inside the vehicles. He ran away into the woods but ended up being grabbed by the SS and shoved into a railroad cattle wagon crammed with 150 other people heading to a German concentration camp.

Mitka reveals the atrocities of life in a concentration camp as well as the sadistic and horrific medical experiments conducted. The authors hold nothing back. In December 1942, Nazi officer ‘Iron’ Gustav Dorr, arrived at the camp, selected Mitka and took him to his home in Rotenburg an der Fulda. At 7 years old he’d survived 4 concentration camps and still wasn’t free. In addition to losing his family, his friends at the orphanage, and his freedom, he was stripped of his identity. He lost his connection to his Jewish faith and his birth name. A slave to the Nazi officer, he was renamed Martin and given a new birth date, making him 10 years old. For seven years he was enslaved by the Door family.

You’ll read about a boy who had reasons to hate, yet chose love. You’ll read of him refusing bitterness and replacing it with happiness. In his later years, you’ll read how he rejected victimhood and moved forward with grace. We won’t be subjected to the horrors Mitka was; however, we can take a lesson from his attitude. Regardless of the situation we find ourselves in, we can choose to survive and we can choose not to let it define us.

This remarkable memoir is to be published July 20, 2021. It was originally titled, “My Name Is Mitka,” because those were the first words he uttered as a liberated child. He’d almost forgotten his birth name. This emotional read is necessary to us understanding the evil that humans are capable of inflicting as well as appreciating the bravery and resilience of those who were captured and survived.

“The man who could not write his name made joy his unforgettable signature. In the end he found himself.”

I received this gift from Mitka Kalinski, his team of authors, the Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.

Of the many, many holocaust books I've read this is one of the most chilling, crushing and moving. What Mitka Kalinski endured is incomprehensible. Not only was he on his own since about the age of six during WWII, he was sent on cattle cars to...and miraculously survived...four concentration camps. At a Nazi farm he was enslaved, tortured and barely existed on animal's feed and had a new identity including name forced on him. Let me reiterate...he was by himself, no family.

Mitka's memories of a man and a woman with a few details are vague but he believes they are of his parents. He went through massacres, wore no shoes (only rags) and experienced unspeakable horrors. His will to survive was remarkable, his courage unsurpassable. Mitka's accounts gave me goosebumps as well as tears. The precious little boy! Fast forward to post war and Mitka works at "normal" jobs at which he did not know what to do, what the procedures and rules were. But he was clever and enterprising. He married and had a family. But he kept his experiences secret until much later. It was his way of coping.

After he finally told his wife much of his story and when his children were older, they returned to Germany to seek answers. I can't imagine the level of torment and fear he had. Thankfully he had good support. He was satisfied.

This poignant book is breathtaking. I really struggled and wrestled with it as it is so heart wrenching. Kudos to Mitka for telling his story. He is a true hero and then some. My utmost respect, Sir.

My sincere thank you to Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and NetGalley for the honour of reading this extremely difficult and important book. It should be required reading.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers, and the author for giving me the opportunity to review this book. The story told is one that is hard to read at times but important.

This story is heartbreaking. It is truly a tragic story that written with a light of survival. Hope you can enjoy this book.