Cilka was the character that left readers wondering at the conclusion of The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This novel, a fictionalized account of Cilka's life, provides the answers. Starting where the author's previous book ended, the story takes Cilka from hope to hopelessness and back again. It is a story of confronting trauma and making the choice to trust and move forward or to let the past define the future. The author uses flashbacks skillfully weaving together the present and the past, adding depth to the story and filling in gaps for those who have not read Tattooist. This book was incredibly hard to put down, I read it in one day. Highest recommendation.

Following closely on the heels of the Tattooist of Auschwitz, Cilka’s Journey, is another page turning story. Author Heather Morris has grappled with further details on the atrocities faced by Jews and dissidents beginning with the Nazis. This story follows Cilka as she does what she must to save herself and those she cares about, from brutality, often death. “It is hard to articulate the relentless bone-chilling cold, the constant flow of sick, injured and dead prisoners, the humiliation of being imprisoned there.” So Cilka says of her time in the Siberian Vorkuta Gulag, Her unwavering determination, courage and tenacity carry her forward as she faces her fate and her captors. These traits also protect her secret ,traitorous, as some would believe, past. As the main character, Cilka draws the reader in and dares them to witness all she does. This begs the question, how was she able to calm her fears upon seeing the bleeding, the injured and maimed, the severely abused, the dead? The other characters are no less damaged by what they must see and do. Each secondary character has his or her own story. The reader and Cilka find compassion for the oppressed and a justifiable loathing for the oppressors.
The settings and times of this story are only history to most of today’s readers. Yet it remains important to understand the lives behind the stories, to meet and to become a part of the story. It is impossible to read this compelling novel without being aghast at Nazi and Soviet barbarity. It is why you silently and fervently stand with Cilka and the other prisoners as if were in their shoes. A heartbreaking, but wonderful read!

I couldn’t put this down. Hard to read some things but such a wonderfully written book of Cilkas story. This is the story of Cilka that survived the concentration camp only to be sent to a prison. This author is so good at taking history and incorporating it into a book that we can’t get enough of. I highly recommend reading it. Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the ARC.

Reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz was a big step for me. I don't usually read books set in WWII and especially in the concentration camps. That being said it left me wanting more stories of the prisoners who had survived the atrocities that went on in the camps. When Net Galley offered me the opportunity to read Cilka's Journey, I knew I had to do it. Cilka was only 16 when she and her sister answered the call to work for the Germans to help their family. Many young people answered this call and found themselves prisoners, barely hanging on when forced into slavery until they were of no more use to the Germans. Cilka did what she had to do to survive 3 years in Auschwitz only to be sentenced to 15 years by the Soviets for aiding the enemy. Cilka's story is one of heartbreak but also resilience. The strength so many men and women showed while fighting for their lives is amazing. If you haven't read The Tattooist of Auschwitz I highly recommend you do so and then, read Cilka's Journey.

To be completely honest: I have not yet read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, but I will be buying it in the morning, thanks to this book!

This book sucked me in from the moment I started reading it; Cilka's story is depressing but I never lost hope for her and her journey from the concentration camp she survived to the gulag of Siberia. You see a struggle for survival, resilience, pain and anguish, but you can't help but feel that she will make it through. The author gives a convincing tale of the life of a political prisoner in the Soviet bloc, without too much dramatization or frills for effect. I'm not one for books with flashbacks, but the ones in this novel are necessary for the movement and rhythm of the tale.

Seriously, don't walk, RUN, to pick up this book.

Cilka's Journey is about a young woman named Cilka, at 18 years old she has survived the horrors of Auschwitz, only to become accused of "Sleeping with the enemy" by the Soviet Agency. After spending a few months at a prison in Krakow, Cilka is sentenced to 15 years hard labor at Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia. The year is 1945.

It is on the way to Siberia where Cilka meets Josie, a 16 year old from Krakow. Cilka can tell this is the first time Josie has been subjected to anything this brutal. She makes it her mission to protect her and the first of many friendships is born. Friendships that carry Cilka through the darkest days. One night, Josie injures her hand and ends up in the medical ward. Impressed with Cilkas medical knowledge, Cilka catches the attention of a doctor. She is then offered a position at the hospital and through this position, finds purpose.

Cilka's Journey is 2nd book in the "Tattooist of Auschwitz" series, but it can also be read as a standalone novel. (I have not read "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" before reading) The book follows Cilka's experiences and time spent at Vorkuta Gulag, with many flash backs of her childhood and of her time spent at Auschwitz. Despite the horrible conditions of everyday life at Vorkuta Gulag, this is a story of friendship, survival, strength, and finding purpose when the cards are stacked against you. Cilka is strong, smart, resourceful and caring. She often takes care of others before herself. It is her strength that draws people to her, and her ability to persevere in the most horrific conditions with a clear head that makes her succeed in everything she does. However, Cilka also has a secret she keeps from everybody around her, one that keeps her overwhelmed with guilt and shame. Cilkas Journey is also a story about her overcoming this guilt and accepting her past in order to embrace the present.

Cilka's Journey is everything I love about Historical Fiction. Heather Morris does an amazing job piecing together real events, places, and people, and creating a beautiful story. I highly recommend it. I was completely captivated by Cilka's Journey, it is tragic, yet beautiful and brings to light a part of history that I have had no prior knowledge of. Her extensive research shows in her writing about Cilka. A real woman whos story deserves to be told. At the end of the novel, Historical background information is included.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy.

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

In this story, Cilka does indeed go on a physical journey – from Auschwitz to Siberia – but the real story is about Cilka’s journey of discovering who she is and about her developing her abilities to help others even in horrible situations. At Auschwitz she managed to survive (that story is touched on in The Tattooist of Auschwitz by this same author). In Cilka’s Journey, Heather Morris shows us the real strength that it takes to survive situations that are terrifying and demoralizing. Cilka has already developed much of that strength with what she has survived at Auschwitz and we get windows into that through flashbacks. Now, though, she is in different settings. On the long train ride to Siberia, people are dying around her and she begins to physically and emotionally help some of them. When she gets to the work camp in Siberia where she has been sentenced to spend 15 years, she is put into a hut and work situation with women who are forced by the situation to rely on each other. These are women who do not know Cilka’s back story and the things she had to do in order to survive. The work most do is hard physical labor but Cilka is given an opportunity to work in the camp hospital and that is where she begins to really help others and to know that she is indeed more than her past. By placing Cilka in various parts of the hospital setting, the author is able to tell about the dangerous working conditions, the mostly horrible attitudes toward the worker/prisoners, the lacks in the medical treatment of injured workers, and the maternity/nursery setting for the women who become pregnant. Through all of the story, the author shows us how the women of Cilka’s hut deal with the imprisonment and punishments and deprivations. This story could be depressing because of the situation(s) in which Cilka has found herself. And yet I found it a really a very hopeful book as we see Cilka on her journey of discovering how to be more than just a survivor. Very early in the story, I found myself liking Cilka and wanting to keep reading to find out how she would survive because somehow I could sense she would. I was there as Cilka learns about herself. As the author says somewhat early in the book, “It is this fire, then that keeps her going. But it is also a part of her curse. It makes her stand out, be singled out. She must contain it, control it, direct it”. I was so caught in the story that I read the book in one day. The author at the end of the book says “The challenge of working with history is to find the core of what was true and the spirit of those who lived then.” Heather Morris has indeed done so with this book.

I was fortunate enough to be selected on netgalley to review this book Cilka Journey. It is the second book written by the author of the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Cilka’s story was lightly touched on in the Tattooist story of Lale and Gita. Cilka was a young girl of 16 when she entered Auschwitz and was very beautiful. Some high ranking nazis took advantage of her and used her for their pleasure. This allowed Cilka to live through 3 years of Auschwitz Birkenau. She was the head of a house where the women came before they were hauled off to the gas chambers. They kept her there so the high ranking Nazi’s had easy access to her. She had to help load the women each day on the truck heading for death. Cilka even had to help load her own mother on that cart. After all this abuse, when the Russians came in they charged her with aiding the enemy and being a spy and sentenced her to 15 years in a Siberian work camp. This is that story. Sadly Cilka is real. This is a true story. Lest we never forget. I read this book in one day.

Millions of people have read The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris, based on the real-life story of Lale and Gita finding love under horrible circumstances. That book has been called “an extraordinary document”, and “a story of hope and survival against incredible odds”. Another reviewer notes, “I find it hard to imagine anyone who would not be drawn in, confronted and moved.” Cilka, Gita’s friend, was also imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau and it is her story that is told in this second companion book to The Tattooist. Cilka’s Journey is historical fiction, based on her life and it is even more compelling, heartbreaking and inspiring.

In the excellent Author Notes at the end of Cilka’s Journey, Heather tells us that tattooist Lale considered Cilka to be the bravest person he had ever known. Cilka’s Journey begins when Cilka, age 16, was torn from her family and condemned to the Nazi concentration camp in 1942, then liberated at the end of the war only to be immediately imprisoned by the Soviet Union. She was then loaded on a box car for three tortuous weeks to a Gulag camp in Siberia north of the Arctic Circle.

What happens to a young girl/woman when staying alive is the only form of resistance she has? What happens when she feels she is an instrument of death? When she has never had any choices? Cilka’s Journey tells of her physical travels and also of her spiritual journey. Cilka survives because she is beautiful, brave, smart and searching for redemption. She survives because somehow humans are able to connect and love even while starving and working in harsh and evil conditions.

One of the most touching parts of the book for me is when the woman in Cilka’s Gulag prison hut celebrate the birth of a baby. They embroider baby clothes made from threads from their sheets and scraps of fabric. It’s hard for me to type that without crying. Another beautiful part of the book is the friendship of Cilka and the woman physician who sees Cilka’s talent and trains her.

The story is told in flashbacks from 1939-1945. The book is written in the third person, I believe deep third person, in the present tense which makes for a vivid and highly immersive story. You will feel like you are there with Cilka and the women, experiencing their fear, hardships, and deprivations. Once you start the book, you will keep reading until the end.

There is an epilogue which lets us know that Cilka and the man with the soft brown eyes she met at the Gulag returned to Czechoslovakia and were married for fifty years. I wonder if Cilka continued her medical work after she was released from the Gulag. This book is an inspiring and important memorial to those who perished and to those who lived to tell, but I wish it had never happened as it’s so unbelievably sad that Cilka’s Journey is based on true events and people.

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press, Heather Morris, and NetGalley for this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

There exist many stories of the atrocities of world war 11; the levels of cruelty and depravation are beyond the imagination. But there are also many stories of bravery and sacrifice men and women committed to survive and assist in the survival of others. I have often wondered and marveled at the people who had the strength to survive. Cilka Klein is one of those women. She survived not only the cruelties of Auschwitz but also 8 years in a Russian gulag. I never realized that this happened. Her name should be exalted and shouted from the rooftops. She was a very real and exceptional person. I never read the Tattoist of Ausschwitz and will definite do so now

“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!

This book was INCREDIBLE. This is the fastest I’ve read through a book in years, and I’m already a voracious reader.

If you are a fan of historical fiction, this is just unputdownable. It goes back and forth from a young woman’s years in a concentration camp to the different but equally horrific place she is sent after she is rescued. It’s based on a true story and I’m just in awe of her strength and bravery.

The characters are going to stick with me for a very long time.

I loved the tattooist of auschwitz (who didn’t) and so just seeing another book available was so exciting!

This book was great!

"Cilka's Journey" by Heather Morris is a work of historical fiction inspired by a real person whom the author's husband (Lale Sokolov, of "The Tattooist of Auschwitz") knew while he himself was in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Cilka Klein, along with her family, was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau when she was just sixteen years old. She survived an incredible three years in the camp by doing a job most people would find unthinkable. Cilka also endured years of rape and sexual abuse by high level Nazi officials.

When Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians, Cilka, accused of collaborating with the Nazis, was sent to the Vorkuta prison camp in Siberia. Imagine surviving the horrors of a Nazi death camp only to find yourself sent to a similar place merely for choosing to survive the death camp! Cilka again finds herself in positions where she must choose unsavory paths just to survive. Despite the new horrors she has to face, Cilka is still able to make friends, help others, and even find a bit of happiness in the darkest of places. Cilka is a remarkable woman and I thoroughly enjoyed reading about her triumphing over evil..

"Cilka's Journey" is an extraordinary story of strength and courage, as well as the price one must sometimes pay to live. Though the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps are widely known and publicized, the similar conditions of the Gulags in the Soviet Union under Stalin are lesser known. The writer does not hold back on her descriptions of the prison camp, nor on the emotional toll it took on its occupants. I believe the author wanted to bring to light two methods of torture and control that were utilized by the Nazis (and the Stalinists) but are often overlooked in light of "more serious" crimes-the rape and sexual abuse of women prisoners.

Despite the heavy content, this was an enjoyable read. I enjoyed the author's descriptive writing style; she really made the characters come alive. The plot tugged both tugged at my heart and made me incredibly angry. I also really liked the bit of non-fiction that the author included at the end. It was very interesting to learn a bit about the real person on whom the fictional Cilka was based. Though this novel may be triggering to some, especially survivors of sexual abuse, I would highly recommend it as I believe it is important for everyone to be as educated as possible about these dark periods of human history in the hopes that someday we may become wise enough not to repeat them.

This book is dubbed as a sequel of sorts to "The Tattooist of Auschwitz" by the same author. However, it really can be read as a stand alone book as well. Even though there are references to the first book (which I have not yet read), they are explained enough so that the reader can properly follow the plot of this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for the privilege of reading an advanced digital copy of this important and eyeopening book.

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.

Thank you NG for the 48 hour window to finish this compelling novel.
I cried at the dinner table, telling my husband about this book that consumed my Sunday. This is the best book I’ve read all summer and my heart continues to grieve for those women in the hut.

I found this book to be absolutely unputdownable, and thus read it in one sitting. You often read about life inside the concentration camps but rarely do you hear anything about the time after. I had no idea that many of the survivors were imprisoned again after being rescued, and especially not for such trivial (i.e nonexsistant) offenses. It is amazing that Cilka or anyone like her actually managed to survive and even thrive after so much injustice and torture.. I can't imagine how devastating it must have been to survive Auschwitz only to be sent to a Siberian Gulag. This book is an incredible story of the absolute strength and tenacity of a young girl determined to survive. That Cilka was a real person who actually went through all of this ( and undoubtedly so much more) makes the book that much more amazing and heartbreaking.

This was definitely a different read for me. It tells of the hell people had to live in in the gulags of Russia as prisoners after WW2. This is an emotional and heart wrenching journey of Cilka’s life after surviving Auschwitz Birkenau. She was a prisoner just for surviving. It also shows love, courage and friendship during a very hard time. Would definitely recommend. Thank you netgalley for letting me give an honest review of this book.

Such a moving, heartfelt book. An emotional story of what happened “after.” A story of resilience and bravery. Wonderful!

Cilka is first introduced in the Tattooist of Auschwitz. Heather Morris weaves a heartbreaking saga of Cilka’s early life drawing on fascinating actual research to tell the story of Cilka’s life. What is different about this historical novel, is that Cilka was a real person and this is her story. After surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau, Cilka becomes a prisoner in the Soviet Gulag. You will fall in love with the other characters and how they are interwoven into the story. Cilka’s Journey is an absolutely outstanding novel of tragedy, fortitude, and hope. For ardent fans of Tattooist, you are in for a wonderful reading experience...for Cilka’s Journey is even better. It is 6 stars!!!!