User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz. After I read the book I read that there were questions concerning the veracity of this book. I did not read this as a work of nonfiction, but rather a work of fiction based on real events. I certainly get that there may be inaccuracies, but the spirit of the novel worked for me. A message that must be conveyed - the importance of never forgetting the horrific things that happened. Things that we have to be reminded of because there are so few Holocaust survivors left, because of the rise of antisemitism in the world, and because there is a lack of awareness of the Holocaust among young people. There are, I’m certain, many nonfiction books and documents covering the Holocaust and the Siberian Gulags , but I’ve never been a big reader of nonfiction. For me, and this is just my personal experience, it has been mostly Holocaust fiction that has has opened my eyes to the atrocities and has broken my heart with immensity of the loss of so many people. If a work of fiction can do that, in my opinion it is worth reading. It is with this view that I read Cilka's Journey and that I high recommend it. I appreciate that Heather Morris tells the reader upfront that the book is a work of fiction. In a note at the end, she explains what is fact and what is fiction. With my defense of this book as fiction, I should add that there are memoirs that I hold in my heart and believe that everyone should read. Night, The Diary of Anne Frank: And Related Readings, But You Did Not Come Back to name a few.
It’s unimaginable that a young girl could survive the horrific Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp for three years after being subjected to sexual abuse, forced to do unthinkable things in order to stay alive and then be sentenced to fifteen years in a Gulag in Siberia for aiding the enemy. Heather Morris enables us to imagine these horrors and takes us to both of these places in this novel. Moving back and forth between Cilka’s flashbacks of Auschwitz-Birkenau and her present Siberia, we are seamlessly taken from place to place, from time to time. Sometimes it’s a thought, a dream , or a present ugly reminder that takes Cilka and us back and forth . It is difficult and uncomfortable and necessary for us to see and imagine how horrible it was. I’m not going to detail any of that here, but will just say that this is an important work of fiction which reflects the horrors of these times and places, but also the real emotions, the real humanity, the real love and the real resilience of people that historical fiction can convey.
I received an advanced copy of this book from St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley and copy from Jordan Hanley at St. Martin’s.
Rating: really liked it
The Year is 1942 and Cilka is only sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. She was a beautiful girl. She was raped and sexually abused by two S.S. Officers. She does whatever she has to do, to stay alive and survive.
Then she is free from the concentration camps but then she is condemned. She is charged with sleeping with the enemy and is then sent to Siberian Prison Camp for 15 years. She faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards.
She then becomes a nurse and has a little bit of freedom. She begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.
I loved loved loved this book. This is a historical novel and there are some graphic scenes that are dark. This book was a lot darker than The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This book can be read as a standalone. It is an emotional read. The S.S. Officers are monsters, they kill and hurt human beings. This is a terrible story but it also is a story of hope and courage. Cilka is so brave.
I really did love this story. This story is an emotional read, but I also found it uplifting at times.
The Holocaust was horrific and couldn't believe all the awful things that happened in the concentration camp and the Siberian prison camp was just as bad.
Heather Morris really did an amazing job on the characters. my favorite character was Cilia but I also loved Josie too. All the characters were very well done and made this novel come alive.
I felt so sad for Cilka, and everything she went through. .There are some scenes that are graphic but this is the Holocaust, a horrifying time.
I could not put this book down. It was a page turner. I loved the writing style. I am really loving historical novels more and more because I think they are needed because we need to remember what happened so that history isn't forgotten. This is an unforgettable story that will stay with me for a long time.
I want to thank Jordan, St. Martin's Press and Heather Morris for the ARC of this book in exchange for a honest review.
Available Now
Rating: really liked it
My reviews can also be seen at: https://deesradreadsandreviews.wordpr...
An excellent read!!
I have had the author's previous novel,
The Tattooist of Auschwitz on my to be read list for quite some time. I would have liked to have read it before starting
Cilka’s Journey, but as soon as I received this book, I started reading. This novel was fine as a stand-alone, although part of me wanted to know more about some of the characters mentioned by Cilka (especially Lale and Gita).
The author is clear that while the story is based on actual events, it is still a novel of fiction. “Although it weaves together facts and reportage with the experiences of women survivors of the Holocaust, and the experiences of women sent to the Soviet Gulag system at the end of the Second World War, it is a novel and does not represent the entire facts of Cilka’s life. Furthermore, it contains a mix of characters: some inspired by real-life figures, in some instances representing more than one individual, others completely imagined.” In 1942, Cecilia ‘Cilka’ Klein was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. She was only sixteen years old. Cilka was eighteen after liberation, but she was not free. Cilka had hoped that they would see that she did what she had to do in order to survive. She just wants to go home to Czechoslovakia. But they say Cilka prostituted herself to the enemy and because she can speak other languages including German, they say she is a spy. She’s charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a prison camp in Siberia.
“You can expect a long sentence of hard labour”She's lost everything and endured so much. Now she is being punished for it.
Cilka ends up in another place where power is essential for survival. She wonders how she can possibly go on. There are times when the despair overwhelms her, but there is a fire inside her that helps her to keep going.
In Siberia, Cilka impresses one of the camp's female doctors with her skills and capacity for languages. The doctor offers her a job. A job like this has its advantages, but it may cause jealousy among the other women.
Cilka carries the shame of what went on, of what she did to survive in the
other place. She worries that others will find out what she did there. Cilka tries to get through each day as best she can. There are only two choices, survival or death.
She endures. This was an engrossing and heartbreaking read. I read this novel in just a few sittings. At times the suffering was very hard to read but then I thought about what people had gone through. I am always amazed at the resilience of those who endured so much. Although there was so much cruelty there was also compassion and bravery.
Most of the story is about Cilka’s time in the prison camp in Siberia but also includes flashbacks to her time at Auschwitz.
How does someone survive such brutal conditions? I can’t even imagine the cold, the hunger, the abuse, and terror. I don’t think you can possibly know how you would react unless you're in a similar situation.
A deeply compelling and thought-provoking read with complex and well-developed characters. An emotional story about survival, resilience, hope, and the human spirit.
Cilka’s Journey will stay with me for a very long time.
I'd like to thank St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
Cilka's Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2) by Heather Morris
I did not mean take so long to finally read this Advanced Read Copy but once I received it, I felt very uncomfortable tackling a book about the Holocaust. Finally I read a couple of books that touched on the Holocaust and felt ready to read this book. But first, I read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, as my introduction to this book. After The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I wanted to know what happened to Cilka, after the liberation of the concentration camp, in 1945. I read this book as historical fiction, with the emphasis on fiction, because so little was really known about Cilka and there are so many articles that discuss conflicting information about Cilka, her actions and even her existence.
Having said all of that, I enjoyed this book despite it's gruesome subject matter. Cilka, of this story and the first one, survived the concentration camp by not fighting back with her captors. She was raped regularly by officers high in the chain of command and because they had "claimed" her, she was in charge of Block 25, the barracks where the women who were going into the gas chambers slept one more night, before being loaded into the trucks to be driven to their deaths. When the camps were liberated, Cilka was sentenced to 15 years in a Siberian gulag, for sleeping with the enemy but her role as the head of Block 25 was the role that haunted her even more than the fact she didn't fight back while being raped.
Once at the gulag, Cilka tries to remain unseen, unnoticed but she quickly is chosen by a powerful prisoner to be his property, so she is once again raped regularly but safe from the gang rapes that happened to other women. Cilka's knowledge of many languages and her ability to learn quickly also kept her from hard labor because she was chosen to work with the doctors and nurses in the prisoner medical facility. Always, Cilka remembered her life and role at Auschwitz and feared that her fellow prisoners would find out about her former life. But the memory of her former life also drove her to do all she could to help her fellow inmates.
The real live Soviet gulags were as bad as the Nazi concentration camps, even if they didn't have the gas chambers, ovens, and medical experiments. The prisoners were slaves, to be starved and worked to death and replaced by more slaves, there were always more bodies to replace those that fell. I'd been unaware of the details of places like this and now I know about one more historical horror. Cilka's Journey is a moving story and I'm glad I read it.
Pub October 1, 2019
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
Wow! This book is emotional, provoking, poignant, heartbreaking, touchy, amazing sequel of Tattoist of Auschwitz. Actually Cilka’s stories affected more… Because after the war, her compelling fight to stay alive and endure all tortures, humiliation, disgust, abuse didn’t end yet. Now she is sentenced to hard labor in Siberian camps. And it was time to sharpen her real survival skills for doing what it takes to stay alive and fight against new kind of human monsters who were determined to absorb her last remaining parts of remained hope and joyful feelings slowly each day.
This book shakes you to the core, feel deeply sad, devastated, helpless for all those brave women stayed in the hell and achieved to live after all their losses, suffers because they were so mentally and psychically so strong and admirable, adorable people.
Cilka was only 16 years old when she was taken to Auschwitz Concentration Camp. She grew fast and her instincts told her there were two choices for her: to let them do whatever they wanted to her body or to die. She chose to survive and paid it her sacrifice being judged as prostitute who was sleeping with enemy. And her knowledge of more than three languages helped them convict her as a spy.
Now she was facing her inner fears and tried get through her sentencing days because there was always determination and real fighter hid inside her heart to push her keep going.
Some parts of this book are so dark, brutal, terrifying. All those torments, hunger, terror, humiliation, abuses the women suffered and learned to live with this inhuman conditions when the real war criminals out there resumed living their lives. Was it fair? Never and ever would be.
I really exhausted sobbing, wiping my tears, fighting with the lump on my throat. I haven’t read something so effective, shaking, wrecking for so long. And the most terrifying part is the events on this book are real.
So I dried my tears, stopped my hiccups and sobs, took a deep breath and started clapping all those women, praying for their souls! Their bravery, endurance, survival skills, determination not to bend and break reminded me of those beautiful words of Anna Frank:
“I don’t want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death”
Anna Frank achieved to be immortal, just like all these beautiful, memorable characters starting with Cilka will always stay in my mind and take a special place in my heart.
Of course five bravery, heroic, admiring, astonishing, full of tears, heart-wrenching, world-changing stars coming to this story.
I wholeheartedly liked Tattoist of Auschwitz last year but I LOVED “Cilka’s Journey” more and more!
Rating: really liked it
4.5 stars rounded down. This is a book of historical fiction. Cilka Klein was a real life person who was taken by Germans in WWII to Auschwitz and then Birkenau concentration camps when she was only 16.
The author confirmed that Cilka was a real person, but many events in the book are her own interpretation of Cilka's experiences.
The German camp commandant notices her beauty and takes for his personal sex slave in 1942. She survives because of this. The Soviet Army liberates the camp in 1945. They decide that she was a collaborator because she slept with the enemy. They sentence her to 15 years hard labor. She is sent to another concentration camp, Vorkuta, in the far north of the USSR. She is taken under the wing of the camp doctor, who recognizes her extraordinary abilities. Cilka trains to be a nurse and survives 10 years in Vorkuta before being released.
This is an inspiring story of courage and the will to survive in the face of terrible, life threatening conditions. I became invested in Cilka's story and thoroughly enjoyed this book. I recommend it to fans of Lilac Girls.
Thank You St. Martin's Press and Heather Morris for sending me this eARC through NetGalley.
Rating: really liked it
I do realize that what I wrote and feel is quite an outlier position to be in. However, it is my opinion only and for numerous positive reviews, you can certainly look to many who have read and loved this story. I wish I could have been within that group.
There are some topics that you know, when reading about them, you will become emotionally involved. You will feel the horrors, the troubles, the times in the depth of your heart and soul as you are transported in a world you hoped never had been, but knew it had.
In reading Cilka's Journey, I was hoping for that in depth feeling of loss and the revulsion I felt in so many other Holocaust books I have read. Unfortunately, that was not to be. I should have realized that in this author's first book, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I had trouble with not only some of the content but also in the emotionless (at least it seemed to me) way in which it was written.
However, I decided to put those feelings aside and tackle a book that so many wonderful book friends described as amazing. I only wish it had been just that for me. I once again found the telling cold as if a news reporter was listing events that one might read. It lacked that connection to the characters I found also as being an issue in her first book. There was only telling and it was bereft of showing.
Once again, I learned of the controversy that surrounded the first book has followed this one too! Add to that the issue I had upon learning that Cilka's husband did not want to be named or be a part of this book and her stepson said this telling is both lurid and titillating, being hurtful and appalling to the memory of his stepmother.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.theguardian.com/books/201...
https://www.thefussylibrarian.com/new...
I fully realize that this is more fiction than anything historical, but I also feel that there are a huge number of historical fiction books that do an amazing job of portraying both the person and the historical times of the Holocaust. One of these stories is The Liberian of Auschwitz truly a tale of courage, bravery, and homage to a woman's bravery which I recommend most highly. Others that were tragically wonderful were Auschwitz Lullaby, We Were the Lucky Ones, The Storyteller, Schindler's List, Sarah's Key, The Nightingale, and so many others.
I find myself siding with the Auschwitz Museum when it comes to this author's books. "The factual mistakes made by the author of "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" as well as all misinterpretations resulted in creating a distorted version of Auschwitz. This is dangerous and disrespectful to history. The story deserves better." Passages such as this " Exhausted by hope, the three young women lie on the grass and close their eyes, letting the warmth of the sun transport them away from where they are." Seriously, do we really think Auschwitz prisoners were permitted to lie on the grass gazing at the sun?
I do think Cilka deserves better and although I respect all those who found this a worthwhile read, I unfortunately found it to be appallingly bereft of feeling and that need as a reader to feel one with a historical character who had the life that Cecilia Kovachova bore.
Rating: really liked it
Update: $2.99 kindle special today: Fantastic price for a book worthy to be read!!
“There was such inhuman, unimaginable misery, such a terrible disaster, that it began to seem almost abstract, it would not fit with in the downs of consciousness”.
Cilka had two choices: death or do as she was told.
Cilka was convicted of working with the enemy, as a prostitute and additionally as a spy. She was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
There is no question of how well written, researched, captivating, brutal, devastating and emotionally GUT WRENCHING the history and storytelling is.
Heather Morris outdid herself!!!!! This is a phenomenal novel of the HORRORS of war...
The HORRORS of humanity!!!
This novel is darker and more intense than her previous book: “The tattooist of Auschwitz”.
There are moments of INSPIRATION....
Moments of ruthless courage - strength - bravery- with ordinary people doing incredible things to help others!
There is love - and there is Cilka...
I’ve almost hit my limit...
the wall....with reading Holocaust stories.
I admit to being drained...
I was also gifted with some happy news about the good people too....
Cilka Klein was the good one. She did what she needed to do....
She made a profound difference to many...
Risked her life...
Survived this war...
This novel brings memory - important memory to an extraordinary woman -
Cilka Klein: I’ll remember you!!!
Thank you - first and foremost author Heather Morris.
Thank you Netgalley and St. Martins Publishing- and their terrific staff who are some of the most hardworking generous people in the book world!
Rating: really liked it
5+ stars!
An engrossing, shocking and unsettling extension of this series. I read and loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz last year and was eagerly anticipating getting my hands on a copy of Cilka’s Journey. Although a very difficult novel to read due to the atrocities detailed within these pages, I found this book to be even more intriguing and informative than the first one. The writing is honest, brutal at times, but so important to read so we can honour those that lived through these devastating wartimes. Their voices cannot be forgotten.
Cilka is only sixteen-years-old when she is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1942. She is singled out by the commandant to be given separate living arrangements where she will be available for his pleasure. After living this way for three years, the camp is liberated, although Cilka is not freed. She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy. She is sentenced to fifteen years at a Siberian prison camp where living conditions are not much different than they were at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
I had not known about these Siberian prison camps prior to reading this novel. I was devastated to learn that these dreadful prison camps continued existing after the liberation of Auschwitz. The charges that Cilka faced were so extremely unjust. Had Cilka denied the commandant what he requested, she would have been killed. What other option did she have? My mind was spinning with this situation throughout the entire novel. What options did these prisoners have other than to accept what was demanded of them?
I loved Cilka’s character. She was extremely strong and inspiring in the face of so much pain. She gave strength and hope to many.
On a side note, I believe a large part of what made me truly connect to and love this book so much was that I had been advised by a wonderful friend (who read this novel before I did) that not everything that happens to Cilka is based on fact. As with any historical fiction book, fact and fiction are weaved together to paint a broad picture of the time period/situation being examined. Although Cilka was a real person who endured much of what happens in this novel, not every single circumstance is her personal story. I think knowing that ahead of time really enhanced my connection to the story as it stopped me from looking too deep into the reality of each scenario. As the author mentions in the Note at the end of the novel, “There is a mix of characters inspired by real-life figures, in some instances representing more than one individual, and characters completely imagined.” I urge you to keep this in mind when reading this harrowing and unforgettable book. The author does a phenomenal job incorporating much detail into this gripping and emotional storyline.
I will leave you with one of the most powerful quotes from this book. “Everyone affected by war, captivity, or oppression reacts differently — and away from it, people might try to guess how they would act, or react, in the circumstances. But they do not really know.”
Thank you to my lovely local library for the loan of this exceptional novel!
Rating: really liked it
A wonderful book about one woman's amazing tale, Cilka's Journey is a book where you struggle to come to terms with man's inhumanity to man. I mean, how much can one woman go through in one lifetime? Based on the true story of Cecilia Klein, first incarcerated in Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, when the camp is finally freed by the allies she finds herself arrested for collaboration with the Nazis, and sent to a Soviet gulag above the Arctic Circle.
Cilka was obviously an extraordinary young woman, only sixteen when first sent to Auschwitz, she did what she could to survive, and found she had to pay for it through the years that followed. We first met Cilka in the author's fantastic book The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, whereas Cilka's Journey is a fictional tale about her time spent in the gulags. Conditions in the camp come to the fore, Cilka having to cope with rape, coercion, and the bitter cold of Siberia. Yet through it all hope shines, hope that she will one day be free and be able to find love.
I found Cilka's Journey to be a compelling, yet harrowing read. A wonderful heroine, yet a hard subject, it leaves the reader feeling uneasy, the fact that this book is based on real life. However I have no hesitation in recommending it to all lovers of historical fiction.
My thanks to Allen & Unwin for a copy to read and review. The opinions are entirely my own.
Rating: really liked it
"There have to be more ways to stay alive than to be witness to so much death." Based upon a true story, Cilka's Journey tells that tale of Cilka who was sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, in 1942. There she gained the attention of the Commandant, and is kept separate from the other women, she is allowed to have her hair long, to have "nice" things.... but nothing is free, everything has a cost. Wanting to survive she does what she can, all the while trying to help others.
At the end of the war, she believes she is free, it is over, she can pick up the pieces of her life, but life is not kind, sometimes it is quite cruel, and she is found to be a collaborator for "sleeping" with the enemy, plus she had the gift of language and spoke several languages, certainly she is a spy (as well as a whore). Oh, how that made my blood boil. Her sentence is being sent to a Siberian prison/work camp. Yet again, she cannot escape the unwanted attention (rape) from men. Seriously, let's be real "sleeping with the enemy" and "unwanted attention" are rape, which the women were subjected to time and time again. Her only solace is finding a place in the hospital, where she falls under the wing of a female doctor and finds purpose helping others, giving them solace and saving lives.
"To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."- Elie Wiesel I found this book to be well written, well researched, thought provoking, moving, captivating and heartbreaking. I love books based on true stories and people. This book was no exception. There are some scenes which may make some people uncomfortable, but I feel they are also necessary for the telling of Cilka's story. There was a scene in the book where one character showed sacrifice and gave a "gift to another character. I couldn't help but think of Holocaust Survivor Gerda Weissman Klein who told the story of her friend, Isle, who found a raspberry on a leaf in a Nazi labor camp and instead of eating it, saved it and gave it to Gerda at the end of the day. Gerta said “Can you conceive of a world in which your entire possession becomes one raspberry, and to give this treasure to your friend?” Cilka does not give a raspberry, but she gives an even greater gift in this book.
I thought about MA (Grandmother) a lot during reading this book. She was fifteen when she entered Auschwitz and also received "unwanted attention" and had every single one of her teeth punched out by a Nazi. Strongest woman I ever had the privilege and pleasure of knowing and loving.
This is an emotional tale which gives a glimpse into one woman's life and experiences in both Auschwitz and a Siberian Labor Camp. The cold and snow also become characters in this desolate landscape where the only warmth comes from the close friendships the characters have with others.
This is a story of survival, courage, friendship, love, caring, hatred, rape, racism and cruelty. It is equally inspiring and heartbreaking. I suggest reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz prior to reading this book. Cilka is first introduced in that book as a minor character. Due to interest in her, Morris began to research her life.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
I have really conflicting feelings on this book.
I have read the Tattooist of Auschwitz and found it to be a pretty unemotional read to be honest which has never happened to me before when reading a holocaust book but as far as the book went it was ok.
I wasnt overly surprised to then read that book had already drawn stinging condemnation from the Auschwitz Memorial, which said in a detailed report earlier this year that the book “contains numerous errors and information inconsistent with the facts, as well as exaggerations, misinterpretations and understatements”.
Then this book got released and I read the article on Cilka's stepson and his views on this book and felt pretty disgusted at what the author had done.
And now I've read the book and here's what I feel.
This is another unemotional book by this author on a subject that is far from unemotional. I dont think she should have ever have written it let alone released it, she puts in her notes that she felt it an honor to write this book, shame the actual family members dont agree with you Heather.
But all that aside, the things that went on in both Auschwitz and the Soviet camps did happen and it is just horrendous to even contemplate.
Having visited Auschwitz and Birkenau in September I could visualise the scenes in this book, but visiting and really understanding what these humans lived and died through is another thing entirely.
If i was rating this book on the morals of this author i would give it one star. If i was rating this book on what people endured during the holocaust and the years afterwards I would give it five stars. I am therefore giving this book three stars.
My views on this book and the tattooist of Auschwitz will forever remain complicated. What I am sure about though is that I am done with this author.
Rating: really liked it
”Memories of her old life have faded, become blurred. At some point it became too painful to remember that life with her family, in Bardejov, existed.” When faced with the choice between blind obedience to those in charge or death, Cilka chooses life, but never really fully commits to either choice, as physically, emotionally and mentally drained as she is. Still, there is something inside her that fights to live even when she seems to have nothing left to give.
”The rules change day to day here, she thinks. And though this camp has a different purpose—to get them to work for Russia, rather than killing them for being Jewish—in these conditions, and with constant rape, always the threat of violence and the “hole,” Cilka can see that she has gone from one cruel, inhuman place to another.” Still a teenager when she was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where she was first used as a tool for the pleasure of men for the three years she was there. And then released from the Nazis, she ends up in Siberia. In the Vorkutlag or Vorkuta Gulag labor camp located in Siberia, where she’s been charged with collusion – for doing what she had been forced to do by the men in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Men and women worked hard to avoid the punishment meted out to ones who dared pause in their labor, working to the point of collapsing, occasionally dropping dead from the work, or lack of food.
”What you are doing, Cilka, is the only form of resistance you have—staying alive.” Cilka’s story is a somewhat fictionalized account of Cilka, a real woman who befriended Lale Sokolov, also a real person, in the author’s
The Tattooist of Auschwitz. I am in awe of Cilka, her story, her persistence and inner strength that helped her survive what seems at every twist and turn to be unendurable – and yet – survive she must.
Published: 01 Oct 2019
Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press
Rating: really liked it
A wonderful book about one woman's amazing tale, Cilka's Journey is a book where you struggle to come to terms with man's inhumanity to man. I mean, how much can one woman go through in one lifetime? Based on the true story of Cecilia Klein, first incarcerated in Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, when the camp is finally freed by the allies she finds herself arrested for collaboration with the Nazis, and sent to a Soviet gulag above the Arctic Circle.
Cilka was obviously an extraordinary young woman, only sixteen when first sent to Auschwitz, she did what she could to survive, and found she had to pay for it through the years that followed. We first met Cilka in the author's fantastic book The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, whereas Cilka's Journey is a fictional tale about her time spent in the gulags. Conditions in the camp come to the fore, Cilka having to cope with rape, coercion, and the bitter cold of Siberia. Yet through it all hope shines, hope that she will one day be free and be able to find love.
I found Cilka's Journey to be a compelling, yet harrowing read. A wonderful heroine, yet a hard subject, it leaves the reader feeling uneasy, the fact that this book is based on real life. However I have no hesitation in recommending it to all lovers of historical fiction.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
5 Incredible, Heart-Wrenching, Tear-filled Stars.
When I started “Cilka’s Journey” I didn't think it possible for me to like it as much as its predecessor, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.” In truth, like doesn’t begin to describe my feelings for this book. I loved the story of Lale and Gita and yet, I adored “Cilka’s Journey” - such that I loved it with every cell in my body and every emotion I can possibly muster. If I had to give you one reason why I loved this novel more than Lale and Gita’s, I’d have to say that I loved Cilka’s story perhaps because it wasn’t a love story, unlike that of Lale and Gita.
“Cilka’s Journey” broke me. This is Cilka’s story of survival during the absolute worst of times. Any other person would not have survived and yet she did. First, she survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, only to be liberated and then sentenced by the Soviets to 15 years in Vorkuta gulag in Siberia. It is unthinkable and yet, for Cilka, it was her penance, for doing what she had to do, sleep with the enemy to make it through.
Cilka always put everyone else first, including the girls in her hut and her closest friend Josie, even during times of adversity. I have no words for how selfless Cilka was and for what she went through. Her relationship with Josie was such a blessing and yet it tore at my heart. Tears fell many a time while reading this novel, but none more during her time with Josie. I love how the story is told in the present day and through flashbacks while Cilka was at Auschwitz-Birkenau, it brought such realism to the story and really helped me feel Cilka’s strength.
What more can I say except that I love Cilka Klein. Her strength of character, her determination, her kindness and her selflessness. Your story will stay with me for a long time.Heather Morris - your ability to weave this story from research, from interviews and from facts and use some artistic license, it is a work of art. The author’s note at the end of this novel captivated me. Thank you for bringing “Cilka’s Journey” to life. This is a haunting portrayal of a young girl’s ability to not only survive but thrive during what was the most horrific of times and to do what must be done.
A huge thank you goes out to St. Martin’s Press for sending me a galley of this novel to cherish always.
Published on Goodreads and Amazon on 12.8.19.
