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.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

The Tattooist of Auschwitz  by Heather Morris   288 pages

I have read many World War II-era novels, but never one set in a concentration camp with a love story at its center. And then to learn that author Morris spent years conducting interviews with the real-life Lale Sokolov added an extra layer of realism, yet the reality was overshadowed by the good side of human nature.

In April 1942, Lale Sokolov was rounded up and taken to a Auschwitz-Birkenau, a concentration camp deep inside Poland. Lale was willing to go in order to keep his family out of the Nazi-inflicted harm.

The details of Lale’s journey in a cattle car is horrendous. I can’t even imagine being crowded like that, with only the others around you holding you up.

Soon after his arrival, his captors learn that he can speak five languages, which can be helpful as more and more Jews are brought to this place. Lucky for him. He was made the camp’s tätowierer or the tattooist, the man who inked the number on the prisoners’ left arm. As the tattooist, Lale enjoyed privileges: better accomodations, better---and more---food, warmer clothing.

He soon learned that some of the other prisoners worked in a part of the camp that gathered the money and the gems they gathered from those killed in the crematormian. Lale used the money and gems to bribe guards and others so he could gathered crusts of bread to share among his fellow captives.

In July, Lale fell head over heels with Gita the moment he saw her and tattooed the number 34902. He knew that no matter what the cost, he would survive and marry this woman.

Author Morris takes readers on a journey that is both horrific and happy. I cheered when Lale was successful in helping his fellow inamtes. I cheered louder when Lale and Gita became a couple. I wept as Morris described how the Jews were forced to live, starving a but more day-by-day. Morris focused most of her energy on the love story without making the story seem like the nightmare that it was. That is why I give “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Violin of Auschwitz

The Violin of Auschwitz  by Maria Angels Anglada   109 pages

This succinct novel reveals and chronicles Auschwitz prisoner Daniel’s skill as a crafter of fine violins and subsequent creation at the demands of this captors. The camp’s two most dangerous men make a cruel wager: If Daniel can build an acceptable violin within a certain number of days, the Kommandant wins a case of the finest burgundy; if not, the camp doctor, a torturer, gets to do with Daniel as he pleases. Without knowing how much time he is allowed, driven only pride of workmanship and fear of failure, Daniel tries to recapture his lost art to create an exquisite instrument against all odds.

Although this novel is brief, the emotion is evokes is no less poignant that any tome about World War II. I can’t say it better than the book jacket: “Written with lyrical simplicity and haunting beauty—and interspersed with chilling, actual Nazi documentation—The Violin of Auschwitz is more than just a novel: It is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and the power of beauty, art, and hope to triumph over the darkest adversity.”

The Butterfly and the Violin

The Butterfly and the Violin by Kristy Cambron   330 pages

Present day Manhattan: Art dealer Sera James saw a beautiful painting as a young girl. She has made it her life’s work to find that painting, which has been missing for decades. The painting’s subject is that of a young female violinist with a shaved head and a number tattooed on her forearm. In my mind’s eye, I see a black-and-white painting with the girl’s eyes in color. Her assistant, Penny, gets a lead on the painting. It’s owned by a wealthy San Francisco family, and Sera rushes to try to obtain the painting. 

That’s one story in the complex novel.

1942-1945 Europe.  First in Vienna. Adele is Vienna’s Sweetheart. At sixteen, the young woman is a violin prodigy. She plays the most beautiful music Austrians have ever heard. It doesn’t hurt that Adele is also a beautiful young woman. Her father is a high-ranking Nazi, and Adele is often called upon to play for the upper echelons of the Third Reich. She has fallen in love with one of her colleagues, Vladimir Nicolai, and has embraced his mission to help a Jewish family flee the city. Once it’s know that she’s been involved with Nicolai, she is arrested at her family’s home and sent to Auschwitz. Second, Auschwitz. Adele struggles to survive the harsh realities of the concentration camp, but she is housed in a special musical group. 

That’s the other main story line.

The Butterfly and the Violin is one of those stories that weaves back and forth, which I like. The thing that struck me the most is how Adele was forced to play a violin, not only to stay alive, but as the concentration camp inmates were marched in and out of the camp, some to work, some to die.

The story lacked an overall tension, and wrapped up much too quickly. I give The Butterfly and the Violin 4 out of 5 stars

Auschwitz Escape

 

The Auschwitz Escape by Joel C Rosenberg

468 Pages

This is the story of Jacob Weisz and his experience through World War II and the Auschwitz concentration camp.  When Jacob is swept up in the genocide of the Germans during World War II he becomes involved in a plot to escape Auschwitz and let the world know of the atrocities taking place.  

This was recommended to me by a patron and the best way I can described the book is it is as if James Patterson had written a book about Auschwitz.  While it is based upon an array of true stories, you don't get emotionally invested with any of the characters and Rosenberg fails to convey the true horror of the situation.  It becomes a thriller set during World War II.