"I Would Have Been Executed" Local Holocaust Survivor Shares Story

Approximately six million people were killed during the Holocaust. Even though that genocide ended more than seven decades ago, there are still living survivors. 

One survivor, Mitka Kalinski, has lived in Sparks for more than 50 years now, after he was freed from Nazi captivity. Wednesday, he recounted his miraculous story of survival to the Rotary Club of Sparks.

Kalinski was initially an orphan, living at a Ukrainian boarding school. He recalls the year 1939, "We were told--I was around six to seven-years-old--that something was going to happen in a month's time."

That 'something' turned out to be the Holocaust. 

Kalinksi says, "Bombs started dropping and the next morning we, the kids, were all alone." Young Mitka and another boy set out on foot to look for any teacher they could find.

Instead, Mitka eventually found himself at an execution site in Kiev.  Kalinski says, "They executed over 130,000 people and I was one of them."  He would have been killed, if not for the Nazi soldiers missing his little body underneath that pile of death. Kalinski says, "The body flew on top of me, that's why I'm still here talking to you."

Kalinski escaped the execution site, but a little boy wandering alone, he was eventually picked up by Nazi soldiers.  They took him to Germany, forcing him into several concentration camps.  When we asked Kalinski if he had any hope of getting out alive, he replied, "I didn't even think about it in those years, I was too little to think that.'"

Kalinski was eventually placed in a medical experiment camp. He wouldn't go into detail, "They done a lot of nasty things. I cannot tell you this on TV."

He added that his biggest enemy while in the camps, was hunger. "They give you a slice of bread every three days." He talked about his struggle to survive, "I had to crawl under the fence and get some of the nuts that fall off of the tree."

Kalinski was eventually taken into a Nazi's farm, as a child slave. Conditions there, were no better, he says, "When the horse or cows urinate, I had to put my hands under to get my hands warmed up."

Kalinski's captor never even told the young boy when the war ended, until he says he was freed by General Patton's Third Army. 

Kalinski first made his way to New York through the Displaced Persons Act. He later established his life in Sparks for year-round construction work.

Today, perhaps most miraculous of all, is Mitka's visible resiliency. When we asked how he keeps his spirits up, he says, "When you're sad, you're not going anywhere, believe me, you're just going down, you live sad. I'd rather be up there, up on top (as he points up), making you laugh."

He certainly has a way of doing just that; there were both plenty of tears and laughs at the meeting, believe it or not, because of Mitka's joyful spirit. 

There is currently a book in the works to tell Mitka's entire, incredible story. If you'd like more information about that, click here.