Cilka's Journey

Cilka’s Journey  by Heather Morris   352 pages

Cecelia “Cilka” Klein in only sixteen years old when she is is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for being of Czech Jewish origin.  Celia is a real person and mentioned several times in author Morris’s previous nivel, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

At Auschwitz, Cilka did what she had to do in Auschwitz to stay alive. It was more survival instinct than having someone to live for, as all her family had been murdered by the Nazis. She had been chosen by two SS officers for sex. She endured the repeated rapes, yet was able to use her position to get extra food to her her fellow inmates.

As this story opens, it is late January 1945. The Allies have arrived, freeing all the captives, but not Cilka. No one believed that she did not collaborate willingly with the Germans. She was tried and sentenced to fifteen years on a Russian gulag in Siberia.

The winters are unbearable, the brief summers equally horrendous. She lives in a dorm filled with other women who are there for one reason.  For the officers’ sexual pleasures. Cilka uses her survival skills to help her fellow inmates, earning more and more trust among the guards.

Cilka gets to know some of the women in the “Canada” dorm, the area where jewels and money are gathered from the incoming inmates. She learns how to steal gems and money. She uses them to buy bits of food from two independent contractors.

Cilka’s nursing skills soon have her working in the hospital as a nurse-in-training.  She doesn’t care what she has to do; she’s indoors and not trying to empty the coal buckets brought up from deep beneath the snow-covered earth wil frozen fingers.

The protagonist of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” Lale Sokolov, called Cilka the bravest person he had ever met. And after reading  “Cilka’s Journey,” I agree. Therefore, “Cilka’s Journey”

receives  6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Cilka’s Journey  by Heather Morris   352 pages

Cecelia “Cilka” Klein in only sixteen years old when she is is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for being of Czech Jewish origin.  Celia is a real person and mentioned several times in author Morris’s previous nivel, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

At Auschwitz, Cilka did what she had to do in Auschwitz to stay alive. It was more survival instinct than having someone to live for, as all her family had been murdered by the Nazis. She had been chosen by two SS officers for sex. She endured the repeated rapes, yet was able to use her position to get extra food to her her fellow inmates.

As this story opens, it is late January 1945. The Allies have arrived, freeing all the captives, but not Cilka. No one believed that she did not collaborate willingly with the Germans. She was tried and sentenced to fifteen years on a Russian gulag in Siberia.

The winters are unbearable, the brief summers equally horrendous. She lives in a dorm filled with other women who are there for one reason.  For the officers’ sexual pleasures. Cilka uses her survival skills to help her fellow inmates, earning more and more trust among the guards.

Cilka gets to know some of the women in the “Canada” dorm, the area where jewels and money are gathered from the incoming inmates. She learns how to steal gems and money. She uses them to buy bits of food from two independent contractors.

Cilka’s nursing skills soon have her working in the hospital as a nurse-in-training.  She doesn’t care what she has to do; she’s indoors and not trying to empty the coal buckets brought up from deep beneath the snow-covered earth wil frozen fingers.

The protagonist of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” Lale Sokolov, called Cilka the bravest person he had ever met. And after reading  “Cilka’s Journey,” I agree. Therefore, “Cilka’s Journey”

receives  6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Cilka’s Journey  by Heather Morris   352 pages

Cecelia “Cilka” Klein in only sixteen years old when she is is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for being of Czech Jewish origin.  Celia is a real person and mentioned several times in author Morris’s previous nivel, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

At Auschwitz, Cilka did what she had to do in Auschwitz to stay alive. It was more survival instinct than having someone to live for, as all her family had been murdered by the Nazis. She had been chosen by two SS officers for sex. She endured the repeated rapes, yet was able to use her position to get extra food to her her fellow inmates.

As this story opens, it is late January 1945. The Allies have arrived, freeing all the captives, but not Cilka. No one believed that she did not collaborate willingly with the Germans. She was tried and sentenced to fifteen years on a Russian gulag in Siberia.

The winters are unbearable, the brief summers equally horrendous. She lives in a dorm filled with other women who are there for one reason.  For the officers’ sexual pleasures. Cilka uses her survival skills to help her fellow inmates, earning more and more trust among the guards.

Cilka gets to know some of the women in the “Canada” dorm, the area where jewels and money are gathered from the incoming inmates. She learns how to steal gems and money. She uses them to buy bits of food from two independent contractors.

Cilka’s nursing skills soon have her working in the hospital as a nurse-in-training.  She doesn’t care what she has to do; she’s indoors and not trying to empty the coal buckets brought up from deep beneath the snow-covered earth wil frozen fingers.

The protagonist of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” Lale Sokolov, called Cilka the bravest person he had ever met. And after reading  “Cilka’s Journey,” I agree. Therefore, “Cilka’s Journey”

receives  6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Cilka’s Journey  by Heather Morris   352 pages

Cecelia “Cilka” Klein in only sixteen years old when she is is sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for being of Czech Jewish origin.  Celia is a real person and mentioned several times in author Morris’s previous nivel, “The Tattooist of Auschwitz.”

At Auschwitz, Cilka did what she had to do in Auschwitz to stay alive. It was more survival instinct than having someone to live for, as all her family had been murdered by the Nazis. She had been chosen by two SS officers for sex. She endured the repeated rapes, yet was able to use her position to get extra food to her her fellow inmates.

As this story opens, it is late January 1945. The Allies have arrived, freeing all the captives, but not Cilka. No one believed that she did not collaborate willingly with the Germans. She was tried and sentenced to fifteen years on a Russian gulag in Siberia.

The winters are unbearable, the brief summers equally horrendous. She lives in a dorm filled with other women who are there for one reason.  For the officers’ sexual pleasures. Cilka uses her survival skills to help her fellow inmates, earning more and more trust among the guards.

Cilka gets to know some of the women in the “Canada” dorm, the area where jewels and money are gathered from the incoming inmates. She learns how to steal gems and money. She uses them to buy bits of food from two independent contractors.

Cilka’s nursing skills soon have her working in the hospital as a nurse-in-training.  She doesn’t care what she has to do; she’s indoors and not trying to empty the coal buckets brought up from deep beneath the snow-covered earth wil frozen fingers.

The protagonist of “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” Lale Sokolov, called Cilka the bravest person he had ever met. And after reading  “Cilka’s Journey,” I agree. Therefore, “Cilka’s Journey”

receives  6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.