You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.32 AVERAGE
4.32 AVERAGE
I was thrilled to receive Cilka’s Journey from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. Cilka’s Journey is the follow-up novel to one of my favorite reads of 2019, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It does not follow the same characters, but focuses on the life of one character, Cilka. Admittedly, at the onset of Cilka’s Journey I wondered if I would enjoy this novel, because I had been so heavily invested in the protagonists from The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This story is every bit as compelling as The Tattooist. As the story progressed, I quickly understood the importance of the historical fiction depicted. Author Heather Morris illustrates the heartbreaking life of an Auschwitz survivor sentenced to fifteen years in a Gulag in Siberia. If you are looking for the happy ending after Auschwitz, this book is not that. In fact, this story is every bit as horrific as it’s predecessor. This history is one that is rarely heard, and yet it is also one that deserves to be known and understood. Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to review this advanced reader’s copy. Additionally, thank you to St. Martin’s Press for another beautiful, yet tragic read.
I was thrilled to receive Cilka’s Journey from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. Cilka’s Journey is the follow-up novel to one of my favorite reads of 2019, The Tattooist of Auschwitz. It does not follow the same characters, but focuses on the life of one character, Cilka. Admittedly, at the onset of Cilka’s Journey I wondered if I would enjoy this novel, because I had been so heavily invested in the protagonists from The Tattooist of Auschwitz. This story is every bit as compelling as The Tattooist. As the story progressed, I quickly understood the importance of the historical fiction depicted. Author Heather Morris illustrates the heartbreaking life of an Auschwitz survivor sentenced to fifteen years in a Gulag in Siberia. If you are looking for the happy ending after Auschwitz, this book is not that. In fact, this story is every bit as horrific as it’s predecessor. This history is one that is rarely heard, and yet it is also one that deserves to be known and understood. Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to review this advanced reader’s copy. Additionally, thank you to St. Martin’s Press for another beautiful, yet tragic read.
challenging
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Rape, Torture, Violence
Moderate: Physical abuse, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Suicidal thoughts
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
emotional
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Not as good as the first but still heartbreakingly good. Cilka had so many chances at leaving early from the camp, I wish she would have been able to see her self worth but if I grew up in a concentration camp and continuously ’taken’ by nazi’s, I don’t know what I would have thought of myself either.
A really harrowing and hard read, but very important. I didnt know anything about the Soviet Gulag's so it was really interesting but definitely gut wrenching.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, War
dark
emotional
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I had put off reading this book for a while. I don't want to read about man's inhumanity to man. There is enough evil in the world at the moment.
It is not an easy book to read, but it is an easy read. The language is simple, though heartbreaking. The women are resilient. There is hope
It is not an easy book to read, but it is an easy read. The language is simple, though heartbreaking. The women are resilient. There is hope
'Cilka's Journey' by Heather Morris is a more in-depth follow-up of a peripheral character introduced in [b:The Tattooist of Auschwitz|38359036|The Tattooist of Auschwitz (The Tattooist of Auschwitz, #1)|Heather Morris|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1525962117l/38359036._SY75_.jpg|56940861]. Cecilia 'Cilka' Klein survived the Nazi death camps only to become trapped into slavery by the policies of the psychopath Stalin. Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union during and after World War II, required slave labor, so he built a system of work camps only slightly more humane than Hitler's death camps.
World War II changed Europe. When the Germans lost that war, the countries the Germans had originally invaded before World War II were divided up beween the Allies and the Soviets. Countries that had been invaded by the Allies were restored to their surviving people. Countries invaded by the Soviets were put under the dictatorship of Stalin and not restored to their people. Suspicious of the Nazi camps survivors, Stalin ordered them arrested, tortured some more, and convicted them of crazy crimes against the Soviet Union despite that they had not ever been Soviet citizens. Most of these who were convicted of silly crimes, like laughing during Stalin's speeches or not fighting back while being raped over and over by the Nazis (one of Cilka's convictions), were sentenced to terms of fifteen years or forty, depending, to work at camps set up in Siberia. Siberia was a completely undeveloped and almost uninhabited Soviet territory of permafrost. Slaves, who were women and men kidnapped from all over Europe and the Soviet Union, built cities, mining camps, railroads, and small towns in Siberia.
The food was rotten and not enough to adequately feed people in the slave camps. The prisons were also bad, consisting mostly of barracks with almost no amenities like bathrooms. They had a bucket per barrack for urine and feces for twelve people. The women and men slept in separate barracks, but the men were allowed to rape the woman of their choice at night. The women were raped constantly. The men were employed in construction and mining, while the women did a lot of lifting and transporting of coal and other construction duties. People barely had suitable clothes or shoes in weather of -40F. While guards were Soviet soldiers, it was the real criminals who ran the camps as trusties.
Cilka was imprisoned in Nazi camps at age sixteen, and sentenced to Siberian work camps at age nineteen. She hadn't been free her entire adult life but only had lived with bad food and under prison rules since a teenager of sixteen. Her entire family of sisters and parents had been murdered by the Nazis.
Cilka had to learn a new set of rules because she wasn't expected to die as quickly as she had been in the Nazi camps. She was expected to work as hard as she could at manual labor until the end of her sentence. She had been sentenced to fifteen years. Incredibly, although she was too weak for the manual labor of transporting coal, she found jobs she could do. Her talent of speaking many languages once again opened doors to better jobs. This was fortunate because there was no way she could have survived otherwise.
Eighteen million people were imprisoned by Stalin in the real world in Siberian and other work camps, and it is estimated at least six million died. There was hardly any medical care available, of course, and brutal treatment was the norm. The survivors who finished their sentences were given a thousand dollars or so, and were shipped all over the Soviet Union, with no ability to choose their destination or job. The Soviet Union was a very bleak and impoverished place for everyone, prisoners or no.
This novel is based on a real person. The author researched Cecilia Klein's real life to write the book by traveling to Moscow Russia, hiring researchers and talking to people who had known Cecilia's family in Slovakia and other Holocaust survivors. It is terrible what she survived, gentle reader. Her story is important, though. I highly recommend reading this novel as well as ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’. Both books are fictionalized biographies of real people. The author does not linger on the atrocities, but instead emphasizes personal character attributes which led to survival.
World War II changed Europe. When the Germans lost that war, the countries the Germans had originally invaded before World War II were divided up beween the Allies and the Soviets. Countries that had been invaded by the Allies were restored to their surviving people. Countries invaded by the Soviets were put under the dictatorship of Stalin and not restored to their people. Suspicious of the Nazi camps survivors, Stalin ordered them arrested, tortured some more, and convicted them of crazy crimes against the Soviet Union despite that they had not ever been Soviet citizens. Most of these who were convicted of silly crimes, like laughing during Stalin's speeches or not fighting back while being raped over and over by the Nazis (one of Cilka's convictions), were sentenced to terms of fifteen years or forty, depending, to work at camps set up in Siberia. Siberia was a completely undeveloped and almost uninhabited Soviet territory of permafrost. Slaves, who were women and men kidnapped from all over Europe and the Soviet Union, built cities, mining camps, railroads, and small towns in Siberia.
The food was rotten and not enough to adequately feed people in the slave camps. The prisons were also bad, consisting mostly of barracks with almost no amenities like bathrooms. They had a bucket per barrack for urine and feces for twelve people. The women and men slept in separate barracks, but the men were allowed to rape the woman of their choice at night. The women were raped constantly. The men were employed in construction and mining, while the women did a lot of lifting and transporting of coal and other construction duties. People barely had suitable clothes or shoes in weather of -40F. While guards were Soviet soldiers, it was the real criminals who ran the camps as trusties.
Cilka was imprisoned in Nazi camps at age sixteen, and sentenced to Siberian work camps at age nineteen. She hadn't been free her entire adult life but only had lived with bad food and under prison rules since a teenager of sixteen. Her entire family of sisters and parents had been murdered by the Nazis.
Cilka had to learn a new set of rules because she wasn't expected to die as quickly as she had been in the Nazi camps. She was expected to work as hard as she could at manual labor until the end of her sentence. She had been sentenced to fifteen years. Incredibly, although she was too weak for the manual labor of transporting coal, she found jobs she could do. Her talent of speaking many languages once again opened doors to better jobs. This was fortunate because there was no way she could have survived otherwise.
Eighteen million people were imprisoned by Stalin in the real world in Siberian and other work camps, and it is estimated at least six million died. There was hardly any medical care available, of course, and brutal treatment was the norm. The survivors who finished their sentences were given a thousand dollars or so, and were shipped all over the Soviet Union, with no ability to choose their destination or job. The Soviet Union was a very bleak and impoverished place for everyone, prisoners or no.
This novel is based on a real person. The author researched Cecilia Klein's real life to write the book by traveling to Moscow Russia, hiring researchers and talking to people who had known Cecilia's family in Slovakia and other Holocaust survivors. It is terrible what she survived, gentle reader. Her story is important, though. I highly recommend reading this novel as well as ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’. Both books are fictionalized biographies of real people. The author does not linger on the atrocities, but instead emphasizes personal character attributes which led to survival.