This book is the follow up to The Tattooist of Auschwitz and follows Cilka who played a role in the story of Lale and Gita. Cilka’s character is based on the life events of a real person. Honestly, I’ve struggled with how many stars to give this. It’s better than 3 but not as good as a 4, so I have to go with 3.5. I liked it and Cilka’s story is one of amazing courage and selflessness. I think it let me down as it seemed to be missing something that The Tattooist of Auschwitz had. And I feel like it’s fair to compare them to each other since this is the sequel. Also, it started to drag for me in the last 30% of the book. Still, if you like historical fiction, you’ll probably like this book.

What would you do to stay alive when virtually nothing is in your control? This book explores this notion.

It's difficult to say I "enjoyed" this book, since it's about such a hard life, but it was definitely a page-turner for me. "Cilka's Journey" explores life in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia, as well as difficult memories of Cilka's experience in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp. I learned a lot about how the Soviet labor camps functioned. (Many years ago, I read Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece, "Gulag Archipelago", but that was a VERY different kind of book.)

I didn't realize at first that this is a companion piece to another book that I've had on my "want to read" list for a while: "The Tatooist of Auschwitz". Having now read "Cilka's Journey", I believe you can read this as a standalone book.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review this book in advance of publication.

Kristina Morris's sophomore novel, Cilka's Journey, follows a brave young Czech woman from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the gulag at Vorkuta, a Siberian prison labor camp. When the Soviets liberate Birkenau, they sentence 18 year old Cilka Klein to 15 years hard labor for prostitution and espionage, though she was repeatedly raped by a German officer. En route to Siberia by cattle train, Cilka is fortunate to befriend Josie, thereafter protecting her like a sister. Cilka endures bitter cold conditions, very little provisions, repeated rape, and humiliation, but forms a rag-tag family with the 20 women of Hut 29. Offered a job in the hospital, she trains as a nurse under the tutelage of compassionate Georgian volunteer, Dr. Yelena. As Cilka’s responsibility grows, from the maternity ward, the infectious disease ward and the ambulance, she feels purpose and contentment despite the unpleasantries of the gulag where she will spend 8 years. After saving the Kommandant's child twice, she is offered freedom, but selflessly gives it to Josie and her child. Fans of Pam Jenoff will enjoy Cilka’s incredible story of bravery and love. Cilka was a side character in Morris's debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and now readers are very lucky to get the full story of Cilka's remarkable life.

At only 16 years old, Cilka Klein was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, where she clung to life for three years. Cilka’s beauty and distinctive hair catch the eye of a senior officer, Commander Schwarzhuber. As a child, she becomes a pawn to powerful men and realizes her only chance of survival is to do as she’s told.

Upon Cilka’s release from the Nazis, she is charged with colluding with the enemy by her Russian liberators. After three years of watching her people, and even family, being murdered, Cilka is sent to another place of imprisonment - the Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia. In this new confinement, she quickly learns that not much is different, with unwanted attention from both men and guards. However, she finds friendship and purpose in the hospital ward - and even a possible spark of romance.

Cilka’s Journey - from the best-selling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz Heather Morris - continues Cilka Klein’s story of survival, the strength of character, and bravery through some of the worst times of human history. It reveals the atrocities committed against women in particular and explores themes of shame and sexual violence which are still relevant today. This work of historical fiction will open your eyes to the realities women in these camps faced and the resiliency of the will to live.

The world at large is still learning about the atrocities that occurred under the Nazi regime in the mid-20th century. The events occurred decades ago, but healing is always necessary before facing the memories of some injuries and injustices can be faced. How many survivors passed away without ever fully describing what they went through? We will likely never know the full depth and breadth of what happened.



As Morris expresses at the end of Cilka's Journey, one facet that is so often shied away from is the weapon of rape under the Nazi regime - and many others. Though perhaps not "officially" sanctioned, abusive people in positions of power quite frequently employ sexual abuse as a means to exert power and control. For Cilka, her beauty and her youth - that special vibrancy we have when we are young and begin to realize our whole lives are before us - caught the attention of Nazi officers. Those officers used their power of position to trap Cilka in impossible situations.



She was forced repeatedly to endure unspeakable things. She must watch countless people be abused, be taken to their deaths. Members of her own family are ripped away from her. She is put in positions of authority over her own people - only as a means of isolating her so that she is more "available" for those who would use her body for their own pleasure. She is ostracized as a "co-conspirator," and ultimately sentenced to 15 years in a Siberian gulag for her "crimes." At 19 years old, Cilka has been deemed a criminal and sentenced to nearly double her life in a prison work camp at the end of the world.



In Siberia, her beauty once again catches the attention of those in charge. By this point, she has learned to use what she has as a way to maintain some control in her life. She acknowledges her choice to either fight and be forcibly raped and beaten, or not fight, and allow her abusers to foster a delusion of caring between them and her. Cilka chooses to stay in control of herself, to gather resources as she is able, and to use those resources to better the lives of those around her. Even those who continue to condemn her for making impossible choices.



I am astounded by Cilka's bravery. I whole-heartedly agree with Lale's assessment that she is the bravest person I've ever known. I wish I could have met her in person. Spent time in her presence.



The amount of strength contained in this woman is breathtaking. She survived so much, endured so much, and she kept her humanity. I am so inspired by her, even as my heart sobs over what she experienced throughout her life.



Thank you so very, very much to Heather Morris for thoroughly researching and expertly preserving Cilka's story as she has. This is a book I will treasure forever and will encourage my children to read as they get older.

Thank you St. Martin's Press for a physical advance copy and netgalley for an eARC of this incredible story.

Cilka's Journey was honestly a hard read for me. I can't imagine anyone leaving a concentration camp just to get put into a prison camp and still have the resilience Cilka does to survive. It breaks my heart reading about her journey, but it is her story of survival is incredible and remarkable.

I appreciate that Heather Morris states in that this is still a work of fiction. In my option- if a work of fiction can make me feel all the feels: it is a book worth reading.

Though it is a sequel following the Tattooist of Auschwitz, I feel this can also be read as a standalone. Although, I would recommending reading both as they tell an incredible story of survival and what love and hope can endure.

Another great novel by Heather Morris. A fictional portrayal of Cilka Klein’s journey after her brutal stay in Auschwitz. Heart wrenching; a story of survival, friendship, and love. Highly recommend to anyone - but be warned, get your Kleenex ready.

I loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz and was very excited to read this second book and I was not disappointed!, it is based on an incredible true story which is thought provoking and heartbreaking in equal measures.

Cilka a young innocent girl endures the horror of the Auschwitz Birkenau Concentration Camp, her only chance of survival is to numb out her feelings and surrender to the unimaginable treatment her captors enforce on her.

After liberation Cilka is charged with aiding and sleeping with the enemy and is sent to a Siberian prison camp, to serve fifteen years of hard labour for her alleged crimes.

Cilka is a remarkable woman. Her bravery and selflessness shines throughout the story. When a woman doctor takes her under her wing Cilka finds her true calling helping the sick and injured, risking her own life to save others. She meets a young man called Ivan who allows her to find happiness and feel love again.

The horrors of War especially the Holocaust stories are ones we should never forget, and this story portrays a time in history which is unimaginable. The suffering imposed on countless innocent people can sometimes feel unreal but when you read a personal story like this it puts the atrocities in focus highlighting mans inhumanity to man.

Although this is a book which is devastating and brutal it is also one of hope, strength and courage. The skills of Heather Morris as a storyteller is simply stunning. Her knowledge and the historical research put into this novel shines through putting it in a league of its own! Definitely one book everyone should read and remember .

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for my chance to read this unforgettable book.

What a fantastic book! Heather Morris’ sequel to the Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey will not let you go. It is very hard to put down! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy!

”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.



Pub Date: 01 Oct 2019


Many thanks for the ARC provided by St. Martin’s Press

This book was simply, a lot. A lot of detail. Historical. Emotional. Physical. Made me want to cry, keep reading and throw my kindle simultaneously. And I loved it! (I also loved that I didn’t need to read her previous work to understand it but I will be going to get it!)

Like most books that are regarding WWII and : the Holocaust, this book strikes a lot of chords. The difference in this one being, it takes place with the atrocities and dangers that still lay ahead for so many people after the war was over.

The main take away I got was “what would you do to stay alive during the worst torture and eventual death imaginable ?” I like to think I’d be even half as strong, determined and smart as Cilka but I have no idea. Absolutely love this book.

Folks who loved "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" likely will enjoy "Cilka's Journey," Heather Morris' follow-up novel in which she explores what happens in the aftermath of World War II to the beautiful woman kept as a sex slave by concentration camp leaders.

Deemed by the Russian liberators to be a collaborator with the Nazis, Cilka is sent to a Siberian gulag for years of hard labor, repeated rapes and more misery.

For me, "Cilka's Journey" is a superior book to "The Tattooist of Auschwitz." In her novel about Lale Sokolov, Morris failed to paint a sympathetic portrait of the tattooist and his struggles to survive the concentration camp. I've read a lot of books about the Holocaust. Most of those books leave me in tears because I'm so moved by the plight of the Jewish people who endured so much. I didn't feel that when I read "The Tattooist of Auschwitz."

"Cilka's Journey" is better. Morris does a better job of letting the readers feel Cilka's hardships and emotional turmoil. I cared about her and wanted her to get her happy ending.

(This review is posted on Goodreads, on my Facebook and in Facebook groups 52 Books and The Book Club Girls)

It's unthinkable that a survivor of the horrors of Auschwitz should suffer the further injustice of a sentence in a Russian gulag, but that was Cilka's reality.

This book centers on Cilka's time in that gulag, though there are flashbacks to her time in Auschwitz. At the beginning I wondered just how depressing this novel would get, but two things kept the darkness from becoming overwhelming: Cilka's enduring hopeful spirit and the author's sensitive handling of the women's abuse.


Cilka's compassion for and understanding of others (even when they judged her harshly) made her a highly sympathetic character, and it was interesting to read about the various medical jobs she did.

Unfortunately, the ending felt rushed, and since the love story wasn't developed at all until almost the very end, I couldn't get invested in it. Also, I was left wondering about Cilka's life after the end of the novel. I wish the author's note had at least mentioned whether she continued using her medical skills.


I hadn't read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, but this worked fine as a standalone.


My review is based on an ARC of this book.

I’d rate this a 4. This is a tough, gut wrenching book to read, not because of the writing but because of the horrendous challenges faced by those in the novel. Cilka’s Journey is a continuation of sorts of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, including some of the same characters. This novel follows the journey of Cilka, a young survivor of Auschwitz. She was a young 16 when she entered Auschwitz. It catalogued the horrors endured in the Auschwitz concentration camp (deaths of family members, friends, and others) and what was needed to survive but this “journey” continued with her being taken prisoner by the Soviets for “collaborating”with the Nazis after the end of World War II. She was taken to a Siberian gulag with an additional 15 year hard labor prison sentence. A double whammy in the worst possible consequence. She did again what was needed to survive in the gulag, but completely devoid of emotion and in a way removing herself psychologically from the everyday horror of life, with temperatures well below freezing in the long winters, and the sleepless white nights of the summers. It would almost seem unbelievable and unrealistic on what transpires, but the sad part is this is largely a true story. Among all the horrific challenges facing the prisoners in the gulag, Cilka through her strength (from where it is hard to believe for all she endured in Auschwitz and in the gulag), did as well as she could and became a trusted worker and friend but constantly being dogged by her past in Auschwitz. Recently there has been an inundation of World War II novels, which generally are so depressing, so I was a little hesitant to take on this book but this novel primarily focused on the Soviet gulag system which I was less knowledgeable on. This novel, too, is difficult to read and hard to comprehend man’s inhumanity to others, but it did provide me with a greater understanding of the equally horrible conditions sustained by those in the gulags.

This is a heartbreaking novel of contradictions: incredible personal strength, resilience, psychological and physical torture, rape, kindness, ingenuity, and truly the indomitable human spirit when faced with the challenge of just staying alive. I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I really loved The tattoist of auchwitz and am so happy to be able to read more. Cilka was a favorite character for this. This book is so inspiring. I recommend this book and the tattoist of auchwitz to all of my patrons at the library. LOVE LOVE LOVE

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review. I'd read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, and it touched my heart. This book not only made me feel the same, but that it's based on truth, and that it is about another form of imprisonment, the Gulag (something about which I'd known nothing, other than the name) makes it even more unique and interesting. While this book has ties to the previous, it can stand alone. (Although I'd recommend both.) To believe that anyone could have gone through the Holocaust, and THEN be sentenced to hard labor, in horrific conditions, is unimaginable to me. The characters in this book stay with you, and it will remind you that the human spirit can really get through just about anything. Put this on your pre-order list. I promise you'll thank me.

I appreciate St. Martins Press, Heather Morris and #NetGalley for an advanced copy of the book Cilka’s Journey. I loved this book! Cilka's Journey was heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. Cilka was a real woman who actually experienced the imprisonment we read about through her story. She was merely a girl of 16 when she was taken to Auschwitz. She did whatever she needed to do to survive. After being freed from Auschwitz, she was transported to a Russian gulag for prostitution with the SS Guards in Auschwitz and sentenced to another 15 years in yet another prison camp. Her treatment in the Russian camp wasn't much better than the prisoners received in the German one. Through all this, she manages to help other women in the camp.

I was given the opportunity by Net Galley to read an early copy of this book. I hadn’t read The Tattooist of Auschwitz yet so I read that first. Both books are extraordinarily hard, but worthwhile reads. After finishing The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I couldn’t wait to find out more about Cilka. She went from Auschwitz to a Gulag in Siberia because the Russians considered her a collaborator of the Nazis. This even though she was continually raped by two of the commanders in Auschwitz. The man who was The Tattooist called her the bravest person he ever met. I think most people would have given up after they ended up where Cilka did instead of being liberated. Even though the author didn’t have the first person accounts of Cilka that she had in The Tattooist of Auschwitz, she gives a a well researched account of what her life would have been like in the Gulag. It was wonderful to be given a chance to read about what her life was like after Auschwitz.

At 16 Cilka Klein finds herself deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Nothing in her short lifetime can prepare her for the horrors she witnesses everyday. Catching the eye of a high ranking SS Officer leads her to an administration job, easier work, but leaves her vulnerable to his advances and assaults on a regular basis. Cilka’s only wish is to survive this nightmare that is now her life and to assist the friends she has made in the camp any way she can.

When the Russians finally liberate the camp Cilka believes her nightmare may finally be over. But some who saw her position at camp as too favorable give negative testimony and Cilka is seen by the Russians as a collaborator with the enemy. Cilka is sentenced to 15 years hard labor in Vorkuta, a Gulag in one of the harshest territories in Russia. The nightmare she thought was over is now only beginning. But despite all the physical and emotional hardships she now has to endure, Cilka is determined to live. In time she develops close relationships with her hut mates and upon chance is taken under the wing of Yelena Georgiyevna, a doctor at the hospital in Vorkuta, and is trained to become a nurse. As Cilka’s spirit is tested on a daily basis, she is determined to help her friends survive this new nightmare, while always remaining hopeful she will someday return to her beloved Czechoslovakia.

Heather Morris’s, Cilka’s Journey, is a triumph of the human spirit. To witness this young woman who not only survives, but lives is truly remarkable. Heather Morris lets the reader not only see, but feel Cilka’s strength, fear, shame and sadness. Her resolve to survive and change not only her desperate situation, but that of others is something extraordinary. As a reader I cried, cringed and cheered for every accomplishment she managed to make. Everyone needs to take the opportunity to read this poignant novel. It will touch your heart in so many ways.

In summary, Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris is a story of one young woman’s determination to survive despite all the odds against her. It’s a story of faith and courage in the face of evil and desperation.

I want to thank the publisher St Martin’s Press and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.”

I can't emphasize how much I loved and was moved by this book. Morris states in the beginning of the novel that, although this is a work of historical fiction, she learned about the real-life Cecilia Klein from Lale, the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Although there are many works of historical fiction about the Holocaust, this is one of the first I have read about the all-too-common experience in notorious Russian gulags. It is almost impossible to imagine a life as difficult as what Cilka endured, and to think that she could be as strong, caring, and generous as she was despite all of it. At times, Cilka almost seems too perfect, too selfless, always thinking of others before herself. But when you compound that with the shameful "secret" Cilka holds, despite her "secret" being Nazi rape and unwanted privilege at Auschwitz, you can understand why Cilka feels that she needs to atone for those sins.

Morris does a fantastic job at showing how it is possible for a person to survive throughout years and years and years of these horrifying tribulations, all written in a way that will make you not want to put the book down. Not only did Cilka have to spend four long years at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but she also served more than a decade at the Siberian gulag. From my perspective, it seems undoable. But Cilka manages to do it, through keeping her head down but not losing hope or a sense of resistance, through making friends and finding joy in those friendships, through trying to make a difference, through just merely surviving. In the end, Morris creates a beautiful and heartbreaking story filled with loss and death, but also tiny joys and celebrations. Cilka is an entirely lovable and beautiful character whose journey is too powerful to describe. You will not regret picking up this book.