We first met our Someone 2 Know last year, at a local Rotary gathering - when he told his story of surviving the Holocaust.
Recently, Mitka Kalinski and his wife Adrienne invited us into their Sparks home - where they have lived for more than 50 years - to share more personal details of his life.
The first thing you notice about Mitka is his warm, engaging smile and friendly nature; "I don't wanna be sad, I wanna live a happy life,” he tells us.
He chooses joy.
Despite enduring inhumane atrocities during the Holocaust;
"Bad things,” sighs Mitka, “are impossible for you to forget."
Almost 80 years later, Kalinski still smiles easily and gets a twinkle in his bright blue eyes before joking around with his wife.
"Boy, Adrienne, you've shrunk, you know that?” says Mitka as he walks to stand next to her.
The couple has been married 66 years.
"Geez,” Mitka continues with a smirk, “You're going down instead of this way," he gestures upward at Adrienne, and her diminutive stature.
But it wasn't until 28 years of marriage that Mitka shared his secret with Adrienne.
Kalinksi's ordeal started when he was about six years old and living with other orphaned Jewish children in the Soviet Ukraine.
"They put me in a boarding school in 1939, Bila Tservka."
The town of Bila Tservka - near Kiev - was attacked by the Nazis in 1941.
"The Germans went to that boarding school, where I ran away from - they murdered all the children, they murdered - and I ran away from them."
Mitka was eventually caught, escaped death again at a concentration camp, then ended up a slave on the farm of a Nazi officer. He was about seven years old. (He doesn’t know his exact age, because everything – including his identity - was taken away from him).
"There was no food or water, no shoes. We had to tie rags around our feet - step in cow droppings to keep your feet warm in the winter."
Mitka was never taught to read and write - something that still hurts him to this day - but he knows the name of the man that held him captive for seven years.
"Gustav Dörr. That's D, Zero, two umlaut, double R," he explains, with complete confidence.
Mitka was eventually freed, came to the U.S. as a teenager and learned English by watching movies.
"Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello,” Mitka laughs, “All the comedians".
Over the past 50 years, Mitka and Adrienne quietly raised a family in Sparks, and filled their home with albums, photos - and happy memories.
Mitka’s smile is huge as he points to rows and rows of photo albums;
"That was good years for us, you know.”
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To learn more about Mitka – and there is SO MUCH MORE – click the link below. Learn about speaking engagements, a soon to be released book, a documentary – even a song composed in his honor.
