Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris 384 pages
Heather Morris researched the life of Cilka Klein and wrote this fictionalized version of her life, at least, the conversations and some of the camp prisoners were, but, much of the story is factual. At 16 she was taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (1942). The commandant took her for his own because she was so beautiful. When the camps were liberated by the Russians, she was taken to a Siberian prison camp after the war accused of being a collaborator with the enemy for sleeping with the German commandant. Though it was against her will the Russians refused to listen to her side of the story that she did what she had to survive. The gulag she was forced into was more treacherous than what she had originally suffered through at Auschwitz. A bright light happens when a female doctor sees in her an ability to work with the sick even heal others who would have been her enemies outside the camp. The doctor uses her influence to bring Cilka in to the hospital to learn how to assist her during medical procedures. The story is very well told and so real you feel for this poor creature. Good story. I recommend it to teens on up. Found out today it is book 2 in a series titled, Tatooist of Auschwitz. Are there no stand alone books anymore? This one actually does even if it is a part of a series.
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