Antonin Kalina (17 February 1902, Třebíč – 26 November 1990, Prague) was a Czechoslovak citizen who was imprisoned during World War II in the

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; 'beech forest') was a German Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich (Old Reich) territori ...

concentration camp. There, he managed to save the lives of more than 900 children. As a non-Jew who saved Jews during the Holocaust, he was posthumously awarded the title

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

in 2012. The

Czech president The president of the Czech Republic, constitutionally defined as the President of the Republic (), is the head of state of the Czech Republic and the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Czech Republic. The presidency has largely bee ...

Miloš Zeman Miloš Zeman (; born 28 September 1944) is a Czech politician who served as the third president of the Czech Republic from 2013 to 2023. He also previously served as the prime minister of the Czech Republic from 1998 to 2002. As leader of the Cze ...

awarded him with Medal of Merit two years later.

Biography

Kalina was born in Třebíč as one of twelve children of a shoemaker and he himself learnt this craft. He was raised in considerable poverty and which led him to become a Communist. He was arrested by the Nazis in 1939 due to his membership in Communist Party. He was initially imprisoned in Dachau and then in Buchenwald. The Germans started to destroy the concentration camps in Eastern Europe as

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

advanced. The remaining prisoners were sent on

death marches A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war, other captives, or deportees in which individuals are left to die along the way. It is distinct from simple prisoner transport via foot march. Article 19 of the Geneva Convention requires that ...

to other camps farther west. Some of them reached Buchenwald where Kalina was imprisoned. Around 100,000 people came to

in 1944–1945. Many of them were children. The children included boys aged 12–16 from all over Europe. Buchenwald Children 13060

A " Communist resistance" was already operation in the camp. To protect the most vulnerable prisoners from the harsh conditions of the camp, it housed them in buildings which it claimed was a quarantine area for prisoners with communicable diseases such as typhus. The Germans did not like to enter this area for fear of disease. Kalina used his position in the camp's resistance to become an elder of Block 66, which people started to call the Kinderblock ("children's block"). Kalina, his deputy Gustav Schiller and other co-workers started to relocate the boys to the Block. They tried to make their stay in the camp less uncomfortable. They managed to spare the younger children the hard work and physical abuse routine in the camp. Kalina also managed to get them better blankets and, sometimes, additional food. He also organised lessons for them. When the front approached the camp, all Jews were ordered to convene but Kalina falsified the documents of the Jewish boys and hid their

Yellow badge The yellow badge, also known as the yellow patch, the Jewish badge, or the yellow star (, ), was an accessory that Jews were required to wear in certain non-Jewish societies throughout history. A Jew's ethno-religious identity, which would be d ...

s. When SS men came for the prisoners, Kalina persuaded them that there were no Jews in the Block. Kalina returned to Czechoslovakia after the war. He lived and worked in Prague. He was not recognised during his lifetime as he never talked about his actions during the war and boys he had saved did not like to talk about their experiences. Kalina died in Prague on 26 November 1990.

Legacy

Kalina was recognized as a

on 3 June 2012 due to the efforts of some of ''"Kalina's Children"'', the American Historian Kenneth Waltzer and the release of the document ''Kinderblock 66: Return to Buchenwald'' that told story of Kalina and the boys he had saved. Three of the boys saved by Kalina were present at the Righteous Among the Nations awarding ceremony. Czech President

awarded Kalina the Medal of Merit, First Grade, on 28 September 2014.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kalina Antonin 1902 births 1990 deaths People from Třebíč People from Prague Czech communists Czech resistance members Czech Righteous Among the Nations Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) Buchenwald concentration camp survivors