Heather Morris' "Cilka's Journey": A Tale of Survival and Hope

Sandy Paws: I'm about 1/4 thru, and really look forward to reading a little each day.

United States on Oct 04, 2023

Amazon Customer: Heartbreaking story of what the people had to go through in those terrible time.
It’s hard to imagine people treating people with such hatred for no good reason. I thank the Lord that I didn’t have to endure all that torture.

United States on Sep 28, 2023

Linda Thompson: Difficult subject but excellent read.

United Kingdom on Sep 25, 2023

N&R C: Cilkas' journey was something I was wondering about once Tattooist ended. I am sure glad I read book 2! We today do not realize all the happening to those who were imprisoned in the camps and then the interviews once they were freed. Finding the many who went to prison after the camps or retaliation made me awestruck, to say the least. I loved reading this story of Cilka. Made my mind thinking about what has become in the years since this time.

United States on Sep 19, 2023

Amazon Customer: Was delivered the next day to allow me to catty on reading the 'series'. A very touching read.

United Kingdom on Sep 11, 2023

Kindle Customer: Any person that survived in any of the concentration camps is a hero in my book. They hav tremendous strength and determination beyond comprehension. I don’t think I would be able to be that strong. Cilka, a teenager, is a very strong willed person. The compassion she has is genuine and out of character in a place of hell she resided in. Most people would be selfish and self-centered. The nursing job was a blessing compared to the other “jobs” there. Yelena was a great person to encourage and feed Cilkas strength. I don’t think she ever did but it would have been awesome if she found Josie and Natya again.

United States on Aug 03, 2023

jp: It has been a few years since I have read the Tattooist which was a sometimes terrifying look into a dark time in history. The connection with Cilka caught me by surprise. How amazing to survive not only the humiliation of the treatment but also the harsh conditions.

Australia on Jul 08, 2023

Book Reader: Cilka’s Journey is the second book in ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ trilogy series written by Heather Morris, a woman fast becoming my favourite and highly recommended author.

Cilka Klein arrived in Auschwitz in 1942, a small girl of just sixteen years of age. She would remain in this camp and in Auschwitz Birkenau for the next three years, surviving regular ‘selections’ and therefore the gas chambers for all this time.

On the 27th of January 1945, the Russian Army liberated the camp, with many survivors saved. However, this was only the beginning of a nightmare for the young, Cilka.

During her three years in the camp, a high ranking Nazi officer named Schwarzhuber had taken a shine to Cilka and had ensconced her in a private room within Hut 25. In this hut, Cilka watched helplessly as women from the rest of the building were regularly taken to the gas chamber and to their deaths. This was a fate she even witnessed her mother suffer at the hands of these evil monsters!

What saved the life of the girl were the almost constant night-time visits by this same Nazi, who regularly came to her room and raped her. Cilka did not complain about this or...

United Kingdom on Jun 26, 2023

C.Stastny Books: Cilka is a character Lale and Gita knew in Auschwitz (from their story –The Tattooist of Auschwitz). This is a fictional account taken from many true histories of women prisoners in the Russian gulag system after Cilka is freed from Auschwitz at the end of WWII only to end up as a “political” prisoner in a Northern Siberian work camp for “sleeping with the enemy.” It doesn’t matter that she was only 16 when imprisoned in Auschwitz and then forced to be with the SS commandant there because of her physical beauty. She did what she had to to survive, but her past follows her even to her new work camp, which is a new kind of hell for her. This book was horrifyingly fascinating in that these types of stories actually happened. About 18 million people were sentence to these work camps in Russia during Stalin’s evil reign, and 6 million died. Many of the people running the camps were just as bad as the Nazi Gestapo. The atrocities of rape and injuries from unsafe mine conditions and the frozen Arctic weather with not enough clothing to stay warm, not enough food to stay nourished, all led to severe suffering for the prisoners there.

United States on Jun 20, 2023

Anya: Great book. Please follow my advise and read it in this order
1. The Tattooist of Auschwitz
2. Cilka's Journey
3. Three sisters

Poland on Feb 07, 2023