From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on a riveting true story of love and resilience. Her beauty saved her — and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women … Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival.
When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was send to Auschwitz when she was still a child?
In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.
Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.
From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka’s journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit—and the will we have to survive.
more
So I haven’t read a WW2 book that I haven’t five stared. I gave Chilkas journey a five star because some things just irked me a little. I know this is fiction but based on a real person. But I mean how beautiful can someone really be? I mean let’s face it, her beauty is what saved her time after time, along with the fact that she just so happened to know five languages. But mainly because she was so beautiful. I’m some situations even beauty wouldn’t be enough. However, I did like the initial information in this story. I liked that each character aside from Chilka herself seemed flawed and very much human and broken, and miserable. I’m not saying chilka wasn’t like that but she seemed to have it easier in a way than anyone else in the story. But….it was still emtotional and hard to put down. And I think each book based on the holocaust deserves proper recognition. It’s not an easy subject to write or relive. **edit. After finding out that the only true thing about this book was Cilkas name…I kind of feel like “ I knew it!” This book should not be catorgorized as true. Ecspecially now that it has come out that the story was largely embellished. What a shame.
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martins for an advanced copy. I voluntarily reviewed this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
Cilka’s Journey
By: Heather Morris
*REVIEW*
I’ll admit I was not a huge fan of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and I was hesitant to read Cilka’s Journey. This story, however, was better in my opinion than its predecessor. Cilka’s Journey felt more authentic, and the characters were better developed and realistic. Cilka, plus some secondary characters, were genuine, complex and heartbreaking. The entire story is a huge mixed bag of emotions about the horrors Cilka and others experienced daily in work camps, but it’s also a touching tribute to the power of human connection and love, even in an inescapable hell. I’ve read extensively about WWII, and Cilka’s Journey is one of the best fiction based on fact accounts of work camps that I have read. I’m interested to see what Heather Morris writes next.
“Such a small space of time has passed, but the words have been so large.”
Cilka’s Journey is Heather Morris’s follow up to her acclaimed Tattooist of Auschwitz, and follows the story of Cilka Klein. Cilka is a Jew that is first imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau and forced to endure and witness true horror. Her experiences there unfortunately sentence her to 15 years of hard labor in a Soviet Gulag. This however is not a story of injustice and suffering, though clearly that does occur. It is instead the story of healing, finding love in unlikely places and an unbeatable fortitude in the face of adversity.
Cilka’s Journey captivated me from the opening chapter. It is masterfully written and full of turns that keep you reading hours after you’ve decided to go to bed. It is not a pleasant read, as no book about Camps and Gulags can be, but the book will certainly leave you changed.
What an emotional read! This book covered a part of history that most people are not aware of … Siberian Gulags. The relationships that develop or the conflicts that arise are both touching and angering. You will travel back and forth in time through Cilka’s memories. There are no words strong enough to describe the hardships, the abuse, the brutality that individuals endured, but Cilka and so many others demonstrated an amazing level of strength and determination.
The author does a great job of bringing you into the story, developing the characters, making you feel their pain and hope, and holding your breath as your endure their daily existence.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
The first thing I have to say about this book is it will without a doubt make you weep deep hard ugly heartfelt tears. If it doesn’t you don’t have a heart or empathy for anyone. It’s a very sad but also true story of a young girl, Cilka,who had more compassion, love, honor, selflessness, heart, grit and the gift to give than anyone I have ever read about. This is also the first book I have ever read about someone who was in a concentration camp then prison for being in said camp. I’ve seen a couple of movies about concentration camps and the Nazi hells, but this is the first book. It’s a hard one for sure. It’s so well written and so emotional. You feel the pain of this young girl. What she went through and endured at the hands of men who thought of a race as property. Thought they were not worthy of living. This is the sequel to THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ but can be read as a stand alone. Thank goodness because right now I don’t believe I could handle reading the TATTOOIST.
This book takes you into the depths of a hell that a girl lived through. I have to admit I’m not at all sure I would have survived. She was given choices that kept her alive. To down her for accepting these choices is awful. For anyone to say that these people had choices has no idea what living in hell is like. This book makes you feel like you were there. At least it did me. It was beyond anything I could ever imagine happening yet it did. One day you are a child worrying about getting your license to drive and the next you are dragged away from everything you ever knew and treated like you are the lowest form of life. Cilka was such an inspiration. She was such a king young woman/child. She had a chance to leave and gave it to her friend and that friends child. She did these things many times. Put others before herself. She was forced to sleep with officers in charge in Auschwitz. Raped. Then she was sent to prison for conspiring with the enemy for being a survivor. For choosing to live instead of giving up and dying. She did what she had to do. She found happiness after so much hardship. She learned that she was not a horrible person for things she did that was out of her control. She found love and lived. Cilka was a very strong person whom I admire greatly. This book was so well written. It was so well put together.
At the end of this book keep reading. Read the NOTE FROM HEATHER MORRIS thru the very end of the book. You will learn even more about this amazing author and what research she put into this book. I’m so happy that I read every single word even though I had to lay this book down several times and get up and walk around because of weeping so hard. This is truly a great read. Sad yes. Very very sad but it’s one that I think everyone should read. Everyone should know what happened.
Thank you #NetGalley and #StMartin’sPress for the honor of reading this book. Also to Heather Morris for researching and writing this book.
I would give this book a million stars if I could. It’s definitely a 5 kleenex and 5 star book that I highly recommend.
Salutations on this Sacred Sunday my Fellow Book Dragons. I hope yours has been a blessed day. Our Gem this evening is awe inspiring. it is the deepest blue in color with strains of a brilliant, glittering silver-white running through it. This is a stone that has come from afar. It has traveled long, hard journeys. Hold this Gem and you will feel wisdom, and sadness and compassion. This is Cilka’s Journey and it’s Gem Maker, Heather Morris, is an artisan. You may know her from another Gem called The Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Cilka is an innocent young girl thrust into the bowels of a Hell called Auschwitz. At the mercy of the guards she is made to do the unspeakable by the monstrous guards who run the camp, and yet God uses what they mean for evil to do good. He gives Cilka an opportunity to use her natural compassion and intelligence to help the women in her cell block.
After the liberation, Cilka is sent back to Russia, where, because she is not listened to by the Russian Army Officers nor the NKVD, she is eventually sent to a Gulag, where again, God uses her talents to help others. Cilka is intelligent. She speaks several languages. She is educated. She can read and write and is a quick study. She has self discipline. Cilka is an amazing woman.
I loved this book. Cilka Klein is a new heroine of mine, I admire her very much. My only regret is I never got to meet her. I would love to have. Her grit, determination and intelligence, along with her compassion, make her a woman One cannot help but love. How I wish I could give her a hug and a cup of tea, a medal and do something kind for her. The women she cared for and protected, the women she fought for, oh to have spoken to them.
Please get this book. Cilka is a modern day Esther. Cilka teaches us once again, that we all may very well be born “for such a time as this”. Cilka is on sale now, everywhere fine books are sold. Buy one for yourself and one for a friend. But be warned, buy a box of tissues and put the kettle on, you won’t want to put this down until you are finished.
Until tomorrow, I remain, your humble Book Dragon, Drakon T. Longwitten
I received a copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.
A tragic story of the careless judgement of Cilka, a woman who had no choice.
Cilka’s Journey moved me more than any other book I’ve read recently. It’s difficult to describe a story that breaks your heart but at the same time shows you what true courage, strength of character and endurance really are. My attention was immediately held captive as I was taken on a journey of torture, starvation, death and heartbreak. However, this was also a story about endurance, survival, love and the resilience of the human spirit. Cilka’s Journey, is brilliantly written and simply outstanding!
Cilka’s Journey is a historical fiction novel and is based on the true story of Cecilia “Cilka” Klein who was first introduced to readers in Heather Morris’ book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. Although this a sequel to that book it can easily be read as a standalone story. Cilka’s Journey is based on interviews with Lale Sokolov (The Tattooist of Auschwitz) as well as interviews with Cilka’s neighbors and testimony from other survivors. It is written in the first person point of view and begins in January of 1945. The story moves between Cilka’s present time, mostly in Vorkuta Gulag, Siberia and her past experiences. These flashbacks are in italics and give brief glimpses into Cilka’s life before being sent to a concentration camp and her inconceivable experiences at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
This story begins with the Russian’s arrival at the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau where Cilka has been held for almost three years. Rather than being set free, eighteen year old Cilka is detained for questioning. The Russians believe she is a spy because Cilka has adapted to her environment by learning different languages and has survived by doing what she was told by those who imprisoned her. Despite being raped by the Nazis, she is being accused of prostituting herself for the enemy. There is no understanding of the circumstances that Cilka has had to endure nor any empathy for what was done to her since her arrival at the camp at the young age of sixteen. After months of being held prisoner Cilka is convicted of working with the enemy as a prostitute and spy and sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberia.
Cilka is loaded onto a train car filled with other women who are also being unjustly accused. Their crimes range from marrying a foreigner, sewing for a Nazi General’s wife and allowing a Nazi to buy bread from a bakery. Cilka is surrounded by women, children and infants who are sick, starving and dying. As the train continues on the journey to Siberia, Cilka reflects on when she first arrived at Auschwitz with her sister Magda and the events that began three years ago. While on the train, she meets Josie a young sixteen year old girl who is unaware and unprepared for what is to come. Cilka befriends Josie and is determined to look out for her.
When Cilka arrives in Vorkuta Gulag, Siberia she soon realizes that she has gone from one inhumane place to another as she faces new and horribly familiar challenges. The prisoners lack food and adequate clothing against the cold. The women are degraded, routinely raped and forced to do hard labor. Despite everything, Cilka is determined to survive. When she meets Dr. Yelena Georgiyevna Cilka is asked to work at the hospital. As she is training to be a nurse, Cilka finds her purpose in helping others. She becomes a voice for the sick and innocent.
Cilka becomes close to Dr. Yelena and the people she works with. Over time the women of Hut 29 become her family as they come together to offer support and comfort. Her relationship with Josie continues to grows and Cilka is willing to sacrifice everything, even her freedom to protect her. Despite suffering through so many atrocities, Cilka even finds comfort and love.
Cilka’s Journey was an amazing story of courage and hope. Cilka is a strong, determined woman who fearlessly walks into coal mines, is determined to help others and continually chooses to live. She quickly becomes someone you admire and care about. This story is richly detailed and beautifully written. It is an emotional read that deals with mature themes and dark, graphic content. The details can be hard to read but they are essential to understanding the events of this story. This story is also encouraging and inspirational as it highlights the spirit to survive. It is a fast paced book that captures your attention and makes it impossible to put down. I highly recommend this historical fiction book. It’s an unforgettable story that crawls into your heart and soul. I know this book and this story will stay with me for a long time! I highly recommend that you read and experience Cilka’s Journey for yourself!
Note-At the end of this book the author, Heather Morris provides a lot of detailed information about how she started writing about Cilka and the research involved in writing this book. She gives additional information about Cilka and her life. There’s also a section about the realities of Stalin’s Gulags.
I would like to thank the author, St. Martin’s Press and Goodreads for providing me with this free advanced reader’s copy in exchange for my honest, unbiased review! I truly appreciate the opportunity to read and experience this amazing book!
I usually do not read books that are based on real events. I have found that my knowledge of the event overshadowed the book. I couldn’t help but compare what happened to what was going on in the book. I would almost always end up disappointed in the book. Then I read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which is the first book in this series. I was taken away by Lale’s story. Cilka was introduced in this book. She was a mysterious and enigmatic character. I wondered what happened to her at the end of the book. What I read in Cilka’s Journey broke my heart.
Cilka was a child when she caught the attention of The Commandant. Which sickened me in the first book. In this book, I was still sickened. What he did to Cilka in those years was heartbreaking. But, it was what happened after Auschwitz was released that broke my heart.
Cilka was found to be a Nazi collaborator because the Russian Army found out that she was sleeping with The Commandant. Instead of earning her freedom, she was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia. I was outraged when I read that. She was traumatized at a young age, forced to watch friends and family die/killed, and then, instead of being able to heal, she was retraumatized on top of that.
I know that I am making a big deal about Cilka’s age in this book. She was 16 when she was sent to Auschwitz. She was around 20 when she was sent to Siberia. She suffered trauma after trauma in Auschwitz. So, yes, I was shocked when the Russian Army sent her to Siberia. She was forced to do what she had to survive, which mean becoming a camp wife of a soldier. I can’t tell you how that affected me. The abuse shook me. She suffered in both places. There were points where I wanted to hug her, take her away, and get her therapy.
The prison camp in Siberia was as bad as Auschwitz. But, and stress this, the prisoners could leave, if they survived to the end of the sentences. It was an awful place to live. Disease and violence were rampant. To my knowledge, I don’t think that I have read a book that takes place in one. I have heard of them and have seen them mentioned in books.
Cilka’s Journey was not an easy read. There were times I had to put the book down and walk away because I was that disturbed by it. The emotional impact that it had on me lasted days after I read it.
The end of Cilka’s Journey was informative. The author included a note about Cilka and her life after the prison camp. While the characters portrayed in the prison camp were fictional, the camp itself wasn’t. The author explained what happened to it and when it closed down.
omeone mentioned to me that they had read and loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris. I ordered it, but just never got around to reading it. I then found out Part 2 was available, so I read them back to back. It was not until I read the epilogue of Part 1 that I learned it was based on a true story. You certainly do look at a story a bit differently after that. While reading, I was not impressed with the writing in the least. I did struggle with the rating after learning that it was based on reality, however, I decided to separate the story from the telling of the story. I’m okay with not giving it the 5 stars everyone else has. If I were rating the stories on their own, they would easily be a 10. Here are my thoughts on both books:
3835903645033931
The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (3 Stars)
As mentioned, I felt so bad giving this only 3 stars, but it fell flat. The story itself is unbelievable and amazing, but the author didn’t convey that to the reader. You see, it is based on reality. I am so glad that Lale and Gita found each other afterwards and lived a wonderful life together. It’s a beautiful and haunting story that should be out there for everyone to read, yet somehow I just didn’t feel it was written with feeling. I never really knew what Lale was like, and Gita was just a minor character. I think there are other books out there that are better at portraying some of the raw emotions these people must have felt. This is a story that should be read, but make it one of the many books you read. It felt very flat and sanitized.
Cilka’s Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2) by Heather Morris (3 Stars)
Part 2 was also a disappointment. The story follows Cilka from the first book. Her story is amazing and Cilka is an incredible person, but again the telling of the story fell flat. The language is stilted, there is no depth to any of the characters and some parts are repetitive. The biggest letdown was that I never discovered what Cilka was thinking or feeling. Even in her despair, I never felt her pain. Cilka’s story is remarkable and her life unimaginable, but the author was just always right on the edge of letting you in.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of Cilka’s Journey in return for an honest review.
https://candysplanet.wordpress.com
This book is a fictional story with real facts about Cilka woven into story. It grabs onto you upstairs beginning of book and doesn’t let you go until the end. Cilka’s concentration camp was liberated but the liberators heard stories about her. She did things she wasn’t proud of but did she really have a choice? What will happen to her now? Will she ever be free?
I might be the only person who hasn’t read ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’. It’s on my TBR List, but I haven’t gotten to it yet. This book is a follow-up, but can stand alone. I had no problem following along. It has been a while that a book has kept me reading into the early morning hours. Ms. Morris is an excellent storyteller, sucking you in from the first page with this little known (at least for me) part of history. These stories need to be told and retold so we never forget and never allow it to happen again.
This story follow Cilka, who is freed from Auschwitz but instead of starting over, is sentenced to 15 years in Siberia. This story is moving, sad, but also speaks of the will to live and love. The human spirit is an amazing thing, especially when faced with adversity. You never know what you will do when faced with issues as heinous as reported in this story.
I received an ARC of this book. Opinion is mine alone. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press.
This is an incredible story of how strong one woman can be, even in the absolute worst times. Facts weaved with an awesome storyline. A time in history that each generation needs to be aware of the cruelty and survival.
A must read!
I am a huge fan of historical fiction and jumped at the chance to read CILKA’S JOURNEY. It tells the heart wrenching story of Cilka, a beautiful young woman forced into a terrible situation of survival while imprisoned in Auschwitz during WWII, then labeled a Nazi collaborator and sentenced to time in a Siberian labor prison. It is the follow up to author Heather Morris’s THE TATOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ, where readers are first introduced to Cilka, but it can be easily read as a standalone novel.
I think CILKA’S JOURNEY, based on a real person yet highly fictionalized, tells a story that deserves to be told and stands out in a book market where there is a glut of World War II fiction (I really enjoy war fiction). The book is dark at times and highlights all of the horror and inhumanity in the world, but it also underscores bravery, fortitude, and hope. It is quite an emotional read. Recommended to any historical fiction enthusiast .
I gratefully received an ARC of this title from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley and voluntarily shared my thoughts here.
Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris is the amazing “followup” to her prior novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This novel focuses on the Cilka, the “strongest person” Lale knew.
Ms. Morris has done a fabulous job interweaving the small amount of facts that are known about Cilka’s life with fictional details that result in a remarkable and honorable novel depicting a resilient, selfless soul that through no fault of her own, truly overcame every obstacle that anyone can ever think of, and even those that one cannot, to survive and live on with the love of her life.
I was continually amazed at all she was able to overcome, and where she was able to draw the strength from deep within, when many others would not be able to accomplish a quarter of the same trials and tribulations.
My heart ached for her and for what our people have had to unjustly suffer through now for hundreds of years.
Stories like Cilka’s need to be heard so that she can be remembered, so all the lost souls can be remembered, and so that we can never ever forget.
I was impressed by the amount of research, love, and passion Ms Morris placed into this novel and the information and afterword that was added thereafter.
Excellent read 5/5 stars
Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris is a sequel to the critically acclaimed Tattooist of Auschwitz. It is a work of fiction based on a real person but completed with what probably happened as opposed to what really happened. After spending three years in Auschwitz trying to survive, Cilka is sent to a camp in Siberia. Her sentence: 15 years. She had been found guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy (Nazis) as well as possibly spying for them. There was no trial. Cilka had allowed herself to be raped repeatedly by two different Nazi officers in exchange for her life and small things to help others. For this, she has been punished. Life in Siberia was much the same as at Auschwitz, except colder. The cruelty was rampant. There were no ovens. There was death. It was survival. She was relapsed after ten years and reportedly led a good life, a happy one, for the rest of her years.
This was an incredibly difficult book to read, as are most Holocaust era books. The better the book is written, the more difficult it is to read. The story of Cilka’s time in Siberia is told in great detail, great, horrifying detail. It is so difficult to read that reading time must be broken up, with lighter fare in between readings. It is graphic and painful, but there were good things. Relationships developed. Friends were made; friends were lost. Life moved slowly, but it moved. This was an excellent book, which is not to say, a wonderful book. It was painful to know that human beings could be treated thusly, probably still are treated thusly. Life goes on. Nothings changes. We have the power to change things, the capacity for good, and yet, nothing changes. I recommend Cilka’s Journey for what it is: a reminder. If you are able to read this sort of book, do. It is extremely well done.
I received a free ARC of Cilka’s Journey from Netgalley. All opinions and interpretations contained herein are solely my own. #netgalley #cilkasjourney
I am in awe! Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris is a beautiful book.
If you read the Tattooist of Auschwitz, you will love Cilka’s Journey. We met Cilka in the Tattooist of Auschwitz and as you can guess this is her story. I fell in love with Cilka as she is such a warm, kind person. Reading what she went through will break your heart.
I am not going to tell you anything about the book because I want you to discover her and her journey on your own. This book was a little easier to experience than the Tattooist of Auschwitz. I am not sure if it was because I thought I knew the horrors that would be coming or if this was truly a more gentle story just as Cilka is.
Please don’t miss reading Cilka’s Journey!
Strength from within.
Although this book is fiction it is based on facts researched by the author concerning the people and conditions of Auschwitz and the Russian Gulag in Siberia. The facts are sad but believable considering what was done to the Jewish people and those that did not agree with Stalin’s philosophy or were deemed spies for some reason or another, some of them very young.
The story is about a young girl named Cilka and her time spent is both Auschwitz and in the Russian Gulag following. Think how it must have been for a sixteen year old girl separated from her family in the concentration camp and trying to stay alive, trying to help her sister and her friends. It brought tears when she had to put her mother on the truck to take her to be burned in the Auschwitz crematorium ovens.
As if that was not enough when the Russians came and liberated the camp of Auschwitz she was questioned and sent to prison for sleeping with the Nazi’s. This was hard to think of as she had no choice in what she did in the camps, do as told or die. Nevertheless she was eventually sent to a Russian Gulag where she was sentences to 15 years hard labor. She was 18 years old now surviving for 3 long years in Auschwitz.
The crux of the story surrounds her time and survival in the Russian Gulag with flashbacks to the German camp. She is lost at first but makes friends with the other prisoner’s in the hut she is housed in, especially a 15 year old girl named Jose. She is a strong woman and with no regards to her well being she protects the best of her ability her friends especially her young friend. A woman doctor in the hospital takes her under her wing and helps her with a job in the hospital instead of working in the mines.
While horrible things happen to her and other’s in the Gulag she stays strong and focuses on the good that she can do to help other’s in the hospital and on the ambulance. She throws herself into her job in order to not think about the horrible conditions of the camp and the awful treatment of the prisoner’s there. When given the chance to leave by the Commandant’s wife she asks for the release of her friend Jose instead.
One day while on an ambulance run a young man she has a crush on but has never talked to is beaten and left for dead. She takes him to the hospital and helps him live. In the process she falls in love with him and he falls in love with her. She never thought this could ever happen to her.
Although the book has some sad moments, the rapes of the women, the starving with the thin soup and hard bread and the back breaking work in the mines, it also shows the good in people. The other prisoner’s in her hut, the doctors that help her. The women make it a home by embroidering doilies form threads from the ends of their sheets, they look out for each other and they become like a family in the midst of a horrible situation they find a way to make this situation just a bit better.
I liked the way the author humanizes the characters and the way that the descriptions are clear and sometimes brutal but true for the situation. I think that the explanation of the Gulags and the research is very informative and a valuable part of the book.
I did not read the first book but this book stands alone and I enjoyed reading it, I learned so much I did not know before. Every time I read a different book on WWII and the Holocaust I learn something new. I still will never understand why the Nazi’s were so cruel and why the soviets imprisoned so many that had already suffered so much.
If you have an interest in history and would like to know about the little spoken about Russian Gulags which were in my opinion almost a duplication of the concentration camps you need to read this book, it has so much information. I would recommend it
From a concentration camp to a prison camp…from one horror to the next.
Even though she had no choice but to do what she was told, Cilka was charged by the Russian government with collaborating with the Nazis and given a sentence of 15 years of hard labor in a prison in Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia.
The conditions and treatment in the prison were no better than in the concentration camp, but Cilka knew how to stay alive since she had learned what you needed to do and that was to just do what you are told.
We follow Cilka as she remembers her lovely childhood and the horrors in the concentration camp as well as learn of her current, unbearable situation in the prison. We also get to re-visit Lale and Gita as Cilka’s memories revert to the time in the concentration camp.
The reader sees the atrocities women were subjected to in the concentration camp and the prison.
There are some good people that Cilka meets in the prison hospital where she works which is a blessing to be out of the brutal temperatures loading coal into buckets day in and day out.
You will cringe and be horrified at what goes on as Ms. Morris again minces no words and keeps your interest with her marvelous writing style and research.
Historical fiction fans and those who have read THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ will not want to miss this book. 5/5
This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Cilka was just 16 years of age when she was sent Auschwitz-Birkenau. When the camp was liberated, Cilka was then arrested for being a collaborator. She was then sent to a Siberian gulag where she spent the next 10 years of her life.
Cilka’s life in the gulag is as to be expected. She faces starvation, freezing temperatures and unimaginable hard work. But because of a kind doctor, Cilka begins training as a nurse. This act of kindness guides Cilka to ways to help her fellow prisoners.
Cilka is one of the strongest women I have ever read about. Not only is she tough and resilient. But she is kind and she sacrifices herself to help save others many heartaches.
This book is probably the best of the year for me. I enjoyed The Tatooist of Auschwitz. But, I felt the writing in that story was a little off. You can read my review here. This tale of Cilka and her life is heart wrenching and very well written! I was completely captivated from start to finish!
This is a tale not to be missed!
I received this novel from St. Martin’s Press for a honest review.
“Cilka’s Jouney” by Heather Morris is the second book to the Tattooist of Auschwitz. This book may be read as a stand-alone as Morris also provided extensive flashbacks from Cilka’s time at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This is a heart-breaking and horrific story about Cilka who survived the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp where she had been since she was 16yo. Now that the war is over, Cilka’s attempts to survive was seen as collaborating with the enemy, and for this she was sentenced to the Vorkuta Gulag, a Siberian prison. The work camp is harsh and brutal, where women in the “hut” experienced unbelievable brutality – bu being raped, overworked, and undernourished. The novel accounts the detail of this horrific Soviet Gulag where prisoners undergo the harshest conditions.
Cilka’s big heart by caring for the women in the camp does not come unnoticed and places a target on Cilka, but also gave her an opportunity to work in the prison camp hospital where she is able to train as a nurse. In the hospital, she befriends Yelena an exceptional doctor whom she developed a lasting bond that Cilka needed to psychologically start healing from all the hurt and trauma Cilka has experienced.
As painful as it is to read about the horrors of what Cilka has lived through, has seen, and has experienced, Heather Morris’ writing brings you in as she brilliantly captivates you into the story where you are able to see vividly and feel visceral pain and suffering not only by Cilka but from everyone in the camp. Though the story may be dark and at times bleak, Morris’ writing is not without hope, and you will find that even among those flawed characters, you will find some understanding as Morris is able to peel the layers and show all sides of our humanity. This was a beautiful and well-written historical fiction that truly illuminates the resiliency of the human spirit, and the strength we have to survive.
Thank you to Netgalley, St. Martin’s Press and author Heather Morris for the ebook ARC of this amazing must read book.