Robert Lucchesi

The child of Italian immigrants, Robert (Bob) Lucchesi was raised in a farming community in California’s central valley. His large, loud, and loving family, running triathlons, and movies were his passions. Bob planned to pursue a career as a screenwriter and set his sights on Hollywood, but love intervened when he met his wife, Lisa. He shifted gears and took a job as a manual laborer at Teichert Construction Company. He never, however, lost his commitment to screenwriting. Work, family, late night writing, and quick flights to L.A. to pitch scripts and pursue possibilities characterized his life. Eventually two sons were added into the mix. Bob earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from the University of Phoenix. His hard work at Teichert was rewarded by promotions. In time, he rose to the position of Director of Safety. He never, however, lost his love for film.

Bob’s connection to Mitka’s story began on a camping trip to Bodega Bay, California in the spring of 1994. At the campground along the shores of Doran Beach, he and his wife located a campsite and backed their 1955 Heilite single-wheel tent trailer into the spot. Fellow campers noticed. This rare, vintage oddity of a camper guaranteed an audience, including the camp host.

 Once settled into the campsite, Bob unfolded a camp chair, sat and took in the sunshine and ocean breeze, when he heard a faint sound, a tenor pitch familiar to him. Bob knew that only one instrument made the sound he heard. It was an accordion like the one his father had played; it was a sound of merriment that had filled his childhood home.

Leaving his lounge chair, Bob followed the melody to an early model Pace Arrow motor home. There he encountered a man whose powerful arms pushed and pulled his accordion bellows rhythmically, whose large hands pressed the keys and tapped the buttons adroitly. When the song ended Bob clapped and introduced himself. It was the camp host.

Bob asked, “When did you learn to play the accordion?”

His blue eyes twinkling, the host said, “Seven… maybe eight years old.” Then he said, “I traded a piece of salt pork with one of the other prisoners for his accordion.” 

“Other prisoners?” Bob questioned. “But you said you were seven or eight years old.”

The twinkle faded from the host’s eyes as he turned pensive and replied, “Yes… I was.”

The screenwriter in Bob instantly recognized this man had a story to tell—one unlike any story he’d ever heard. Over the ensuing months Bob returned to Doran Beach again and again, and he telephoned Mitka and his wife Adrienne, all to interview them and hear more of Mitka’s story. Bob would not let it go. He began to research Mitka’s story, travelling to Sparks Nevada and the Kalinski family home often. He patiently nurtured the story, believing the time would come for it to be shared in a book and film.

Currently, Bob serves as the director for what has come to be called informally the “Mitka Project.” As such, he oversees Mitka’s speaking engagements and serves as the Kalinskis’ liaison and business manager as they interact with parties interested in Mitka’s story.

Mitka’s Secret: A True Story of Child Slavery and Surviving the Holocaust would not have come into being had Bob not held on to the story from that long ago camping trip.

Bob recognized that Mitka’s was a story worth telling. He shepherded that story for a quarter of a century. He now waits with excitement and anticipation, for the world to meet Mitka.