“Did I tell you about Cilka?" "No, Lale, you didn't. Who was Cilka?" "She was the bravest person I ever met. Not the bravest girl, the bravest person.”

This is a harrowing story based on true events, the wonderful sequel to The Tattooist of Auschwitz is about Cilka and her journey through the camps at Birkenau to the Vorkuta gulag in Sibera.
I kept forgetting how young Cilka was when all of this was happening, the story completely sucked me in and I just couldn't put it down. It's hard to imagine what she must have gone through, and I don't think that I could have survived what she experienced.
It was a nice touch that Heather Morris told us in the beginning that this was a work of fiction but there is lots of information after the story to help us understand her movements.
This is a story of one woman's survival, her courage, friendship, love, the hatred, rape, racism and cruelty she endured; with all this in mind however, it is equally inspiring and heartbreaking.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The follow up to the Tattooist of Auschwitz or so I thought.
No way as good and did not keep me wanting to keep reading.I found it a bit boring and had a bit to much romance not the actual horror of the camp.
I would have preferred to have read about Cilkas pre war experiences and then read about the Russian camp.
I must be one of the few not to rave about this book but after the Tattooist it had a lot to live up to and It did not sorry.

Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris is a powerful and heart breaking historical novel with its roots in reality. Lead character Cilka was first encountered in Heather Morris’ previous novel, The Tattooist Of Auschwitz. This book is Cilka’s story.
Cilka’s Journey is set from 1942 to the mid 1950’s. The action is mainly set in the Vorkula Gulag with flashbacks to Auschwitz. It is a heart wrenching novel with a heart of gold at its centre in the form of Cilka. She gives what little she can, whenever she can. Cilka reaches out in kindness.
No one should ever judge anyone who has been in the camps. People did what they did in order to survive. “No one can judge us… There were only two choices: one was to survive. The other was death.” Cilka shows a remarkable strength of character as she detaches her mind from her body. “He can have her body… he cannot have her mind, her heart, her soul.” Serial rape was a weapon of war, used as a form of control by the Nazis and others in authority. There are some hard to read scenes as the weak are overpowered by the strong.
Heather Morris shows the strength of character needed to survive. It is a character that clings to dignity, showing kindness and compassion, and developing loyalty and community. I am full of admiration for Cilka. In her circumstances she did not lose her humanity. “Finding a little hope in the darkness is not a weakness.”
Cilka’s Journey is not a pleasant read. It is hard to witness such cruelty and man’s inhumanity to man. We do need to read it to know what happened and in memory of all the innocents who perished.
I received this book for free. A favourable review was not required and all views expressed are my own.

Wow, what an incredible book. If you loved The tattoos of Auschwitz, then this is a must read. Heartbreaking and gripping, what an incredible woman Cilka was. Highly recommend.

When I read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, I found myself, like many others, drawn to one of the characters we come across: Cilka Klein. She is a beautiful young prisoner who catches the eye of the camp’s SS-Obersturmführer and is forced into a sexual relationship with him in order to survive. So when I heard that Heather Morris had written a follow-up book all about this fascinating woman, Cilka’s Journey, I was so pleased that we would finally be able to hear the story of the character who had captured so many readers’ hearts.

Intrigued to hear what happened to Cilka, I was surprised to find that the answer leads us to Russia, and the Vorkuta gulag. Tragically, after all she endured in Birkenau, on her release Cilka was imprisoned by the Russians as a Nazi collaborator. I knew very little about the experiences of prisoners of these camps, so it was an eye-opening and educational read. I liked that although this novel follows The Tattooist of Auschwitz in time, and we do see glimpses of its central characters Lale and Gita, it is Cilka who is firmly at the heart of this particular story. It isn’t really a sequel to Morris’s earlier novel – it is as the title says, Cilka’s journey.

Morris does a good job of weaving fact and fiction together to imagine Cilka’s story. Unlike with The Tattooist of Auschwitz where Morris had the opportunity to hear Lale’s story from him first hand, for Cilka’s story Morris had to piece small fragments of history together into a readable and compelling story. I had expected the novel to focus more on the time Cilka endured at Auschwitz, but we do see glimpses of it through Cilka’s recollections of her past. The novel gives a sympathetic portrayal of Cilka and raises interesting questions about the decisions we make when confronted with the stark, brutal question of our own survival.

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris
The short version of this review is, if you loved The Tattooist Of Auschwitz, then chances are you will love Cilka's Journey too.
I fell in love with Cilka as the book went on, as she showed so much courage, and the fight to survive. As this book is a work of fiction based on Cilkas life, its difficult to know what her life was actually like, but having read several books about Auschwitz/Birkenau I can begin to form a picture of the true scale of the horror.
Although the subject matter is grim, I did enjoy this book and flew through it very quickly.

Thank you Netgalley for my review copy of this book.

Moving, emotive and totally engaging. Although this story is part of a fiction narrative it does pay tribute to all of the hardship that Cilka went through in her life and her courage and bravery to survive. The nature of a good book is to draw you in to the world they are portraying and this book does just that. You will go through an emotional rollercoaster whilst reading this book.

A really harrowing look at an important part of history that isn’t well known about and should be. Really well written striking the perfect balance between being true to events without over sensationalising them.

This book was a rollercoaster of emotions.

It documented a raw and emotional account of one innocent girl's traumatic journey from Auschwitz to Siberia where she was sentenced to 15 years of hard labour for collaborating with the Nazis.⁣
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Cilka was a selfless character who put everyone before herself, despite the gruelling conditions and mistreatment she continued to receive. The events described in this book were utterly unbelievable. Although some were fictional, the majority were not. The bravery shown by numerous characters in this book showed how people still stuck together and cared for each other during this horrific time, instead of giving up. I admired each and every character that stood up to the system and found the courage to tell their story.

I am drawn to books set during the Holocaust as I believe the events that occurred and the suffering of human beings cannot be ignored and the truth needs to be told. Many think the holocaust didn't actually exist and the whole thing is a work of fiction. This is not the case, and it takes brave people like Cilka and Lale to tell their stories and make sure that this never happens again. I also have to credit the author for bringing this sensitive story to life without sugarcoating what really happened. Yes it broke my heart, and yes I struggled to accept it, but that is what the Holocaust is.

I hope Cilka is in peace and knows how proud of her bravery we all are.

When I heard that Heather Morris was writing this novel based on ‘Cilka’s Journey’ I just couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy. I loved the Tattooist of Auschwitz, it was a heartbreaking but an incredibly interesting read but I always wondered what happened to Cilka. The end of the book never really tied up her story and this is what Cilka’s Journey provides, a completed story which answers all the questions.

I loved every topic this book explored, although most of them were difficult emotionally to read, the way Cilka and her friends were treated was appalling and inhumane. At times it made me feel angry that humans could ever treat each other in this way. Yet this group of women still managed to find hope, a light at the end of the tunnel and they fought through all of the difficulties, hardship and horrific things they faced. They are honestly some of the bravest and strongest women and for that, they should be remembered in history forever.

How Cilka survived all of these horrific ordeals at such a young age I can’t even fathom to imagine. She managed to train as a nurse and make a way of life for herself whilst being kept prison, being continually raped and hardly fed. Yet with each chapter that went by I couldn’t believe how clever she was, how she always found ways to support and help the other women in her hut. What an incredible woman with so much strength.

Heather Morris is an ingenious writer, she pulls you in through her writing and I found that once I started I just couldn’t stop turning the pages. A fantastic yet incredibly difficult and at times brutal read but an important story that needed to be told. One of my favourite reads this year!

Fascinating and heartbreaking book. I love that it is based on a true story and the author has certainly researched the characters well. We first meet Cilka in the Tattooist of Auschwitz and she is described as 'the bravest person I have ever met' by Lale Sokolov the main character in that book. It is fascinating to follow Cilka's journey and to find out her fate after being liberated from the horrors of Auschwitz. Unbelievably she is sentenced to 15 years hard labour in a remote Siberian gulag for the crime of 'collaboration with the enemy'.
The book highlights how horrifically survivors were treated after the war, poor Cilka only did what she had to survive, helping others when she could, and to be imprisoned again was almost unthinkable. I didn't realise the extent to which the gulags were used to imprison people and I certainly didn't realise holocaust survivors also ended up there. A harrowing read but not sensationalised which I appreciated.

After being completely mesmerised by ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ last year, I haven’t stopped thinking about what a remarkable and extraordinary tale it is. I’m still stunned at how it all actually happened. So to hear that there was going to another book leading off from it, I knew I just had to read it. I’ve been waiting for ‘Cilka’s Journey’ ever since I first heard about it and I was so glad to finally be able read it.

This book was truly, truly incredible. I think what’s difficult to comprehend with this book and ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’ is that they’re both a true story and people actually lived through the terrible instances as described. I can’t even put into words the sheer bravery and strength at the core of this story. It’s just remarkable and especially because in this day and age, where it’s lacking. I was in awe at how defiant and strong headed Cilka was but heartbroken at how she was ashamed and guilty for something that she had no choice over whatsoever. I’m glad that this book came out in order to justify and highlight what Cilka did was in order to survive and that any decision was out of her power. As I said before, I think it’s important to have these difficult and haunting reads, especially with ‘Cilka’s Journey’ where there were a lot more pressing issues such as , because it makes you realise how you take the simple things like safety and survival for granted.

Overall, I felt deeply grateful and honoured to have read this book. Cilka’s youth was completely snatched away from her and destroyed. Yet she still found the strength to survive and find love. She’s such an inspiration.

Thanks to Bonnier Zaffre and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

I had been meaning to read The Tattooist of Auschwitz for ages, so read this first and then Cilka's Journey.

As we know, Cilka and Lale were both prisoners at Auschwitz for a number of years. When Auschwitz was liberated, Cilka was deemed to have been 'sleeping with the enemy' and sentenced to 15 years hard labour in a gulag in Siberia.
The novel begins with the awful journey to Siberia and then the freezing conditions of the prisoners hut.
Cilka's selfness nature and determination is amazing. She always thinks of others before herself and despite some initially difficult relationships with others in her hut, manages to make friends.
She gets work in the hospital and wants to help as many people as possible. This doesn't go down well with some of the senior doctors.
After ten years in Siberia, Cilka is released and manages to live her life at last. For such a young girl to have lost her family and then have to endure the horrors of Auschwitz and then a Siberian gulag it's amazing how much compassion she has for others.

Despite the bleak subject matter, the book is readable and very well researched. I really liked the character of Cilka and it really puts into perspective what people went through during that time.

Cilka's Journey is a sequel to the Tattooist of Auschwitz but can be read as a standalone. Following her release from Auschwitz, Cilka is wrongly convicted of working with the enemy as a prostitute and spy and sentenced to fifteen years hard labour in a Siberian labour camp.

This is a story about survival in the most harrowing of circumstances. It is well researched and stories like Cilka's deserve to be told so we never forget the atrocities of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

It will appeal to fans of historical fiction.

*Contains spoilers*

- Cilka's Journey is just as hard-hitting as The Tattooist of Auschwitz. After the liberation of Aushwitz, Cilka is sent to a prison camp as a result of her being seen to have worked 'with' the Nazi's during her time in the camp. What Cilka was forced to do during her time in Auschwitz is slowly revealed over the course of the book, and has long-lasting effects on her choices during her time in the prison camp, as well as the attitude of other prisoners towards her.

-Most of the information regarding Cilka and her life in Aushwitz and her subsequent time in the prison camp is gleaned from interviews with those who knew Cilka, as well as Morris's friendship with Lale Solokov, the subject of Heather Morris's previous book. As such, her story feels somewhat surface level, as if lacking her inner voice, although the narration is from her point of view. Morris has stated that Cilka's story is a blending of these facts into a fictionalised telling of her story. This is only a slight feeling, and there is still a lot of detail in the story. Over time, Cilka is able to work in the medical centre, then out in the ambulance. There is a focus on Cilka's relationship with other prisoners, and this shows that there are both similarities and differences between prisoners in the concentration camps and prisoners in the work camps afterwards. Learning the true extent of Cilka's experience in Auschwitz was a truly harrowing process, leaving me wondering just how she was affected going forward, especially after the subsequent imprisonment and hard labour as well. 


-The experiences of women in the camp are not glossed over. Cilka and the other prisoners are regularly beaten, starved and raped. It was horrific to read of their experiences, but at the same time fascinating to see how some women acted tin order to cope with these awful experiences. Developing a knowledge of how to act was essential if you wanted to survive. Although Morris clearly advises us she had not met Cilka, the detail of the conditions she endured is still so vivid. Cilka is able to develop her skills in the hospital, and eventually meets and falls in love with a patient she is caring for, Alexandr.

-Cilka is eventually released, and managed to meet Alexandr outside the camp, in freedom. The story ends quickly after this, which is expected, I suppose, as the detail of her life must fade at points with Morris relying on second hand accounts of Cilka's life. I found myself wishing for a little more detail as Cilka's journey continued outside the prison camp. However, I appreciate that Morris has not embellished the story afterwards, and kept it as accurate as possible. Overall, I found this book stayed with me for a long time afterwards, and if not in the same way as The Tattooist of Auschwitz, it was still a remarkable read.

Having read the Tattooist of Auschwitz I was looking forward to following Cilka's journey too. I found it hard reading but necessary because this was her journey. It was shocking and her journey was extremely harrowing and at times you thought how much more can she take. This was another brilliant book by the author.

Lale Solokov reached many more readers than I think even he intended through his chosen spokesperson, Heather Morris. The Tattooist of Auschwitz had such great impact on such an enormous scale, and allowed Lale to have a voice long after his story ended. Heather Morris once again acts as a sensitive but unapologetic storyteller for people like Lale who have a stories deserving to be told; this reimagining of Cilka Klein's story is no exception to this. I think it's important to go into this book accepting that history doesn't give up its secrets very easily, and as such this is by no means a complete or completely reliable story of Cilka's life, but it certainly will answer some of the burning questions left at the end of Lale and Gita's story.

We begin our reunion with Cilka almost immediately after the close of the previous book, but instead of the much-deserved freedom Gita and Lale manage to steal back from their captors, Cilka instead is interrogated by the Soviets and accused of prostituting herself to the Nazi's. With that said she is trapped once again in a labour camp, this time in Russia, and this time with a fifteen year sentence upon her now eighteen year old shoulders. Imagine the magnitude of loss, not just of your freedom but once again of your identity, after spending the past three years of your life in a place worse than even Hell, to only find yourself in just another version of it.

The real question most readers will want to know is this: How has a 16 year old girl managed to stay alive in the worst place known to man? Cilka's Journey will show you the intensely driven, hard-working and hopeful teenage girl who grew to be a woman because of her sheer force of will. Cilka is amazing, and her story shows the incredible strength of so many women like her in the Holocaust and beyond.

Most of the story happens within Cilka's new prison. This time, instead of the systematic mass murder of people with gas chambers, Stalin takes a less refined approach and allows the freezing conditions, exhaustion and malnourishment to do the dirty work for him. This isn't to say that Cilka is any better off - in fact all the women continue to endure routine exploitation, beatings and rape on a regular basis. But it does mean that she's been here before, perhaps in worse conditions, and knows how to play the system. Cilka finds herself working with the hospital, fortunate enough to spend a great deal of her time avoiding exposure to the harsh conditions in the mines or outside, and makes a name for herself as somewhat of a hero doing all she can to learn how to be a nurse to those around her.

I loved watching Cilka develop. She learns to cultivate friendships and skills, having seen how integral they were to her survival before, and whilst she struggles to even speak about what happened to her she does learn to trust a few like-minded people. Much of this story is built from testimonials from survivor accounts mentioning Cilka's name, and if even a handful of them are true then Cilka Klein deserved her story to be written, because God only knows people like her deserve to finally have a voice after years of being too frightened or ashamed to admit the horrors that happened to them.

There were a few things which detracted a bit from the story for me. Most notably the use of entire full names multiple times within a single dialogue. I expect this is actually tradition, a sign of respect or authority within Russian culture, but it was so frequent in such short bursts that it felt a little jarring and removed me from the story somewhat. Equally, the ending of Cilka's story felt a little rushed with a rushed romantic connection to end on; whilst this was certainly a significant conclusion to Cilka's life, we hardly see this connection developing and it fell a little flat.

The knowledge that this story is largely built from the memories of Lale, Gita and survivor accounts might initially highlight some gaps in how much we really know, and can ever truly know, and this might be an example of that. But I've thought about this for a while whilst writing this review, and there's actually something quite magical about preserving the memory of a person as incredible as Cilka through the memories of the lives she touched, or better yet in Lale's case saved.

ARC provided free from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz, so I couldn't wait to get my hands on this 'follow up'! CIlka Klein is eighteen when she is freed from the concentration camps, but her freedom is quickly taken away as she is taken to a Siberian prison camp for her forced role during her time there. She must once again survive horrendous conditions and find hope for the future.
I devoured this book; I like the authors writing style and she captures people so well. I could picture every character and the hut they called home. Cilka goes through some awful things but her strength shines through and we the reader will her onward.

Having loved The Tattooist of Auschwitz I was so excited to be approved for Cilkas Journey- thank you Netgalley and Heather Morris. I couldn’t wait to get started and read about what happened to Cilka. I was so shocked and saddened that after Auschwitz was liberated she was arrested for being in with the Nazis and sent to a Russian camp in Siberia. Following Cilka through her time here, I found this a harrowing read but with moments of love and hope. Morris is a wonderful writer. A brilliant book anyone who loved the first book will enjoy it.

Cilka was a wonderful character in 'The tattooist of Auschwitz' and it was wonderful to see a whole story dedicated to her experience there an what happened to her subsequently.
I think, because of the lack of information about Cilka, and how the author has used accounts of multiple women to weave together a more fictionalised narrative, the story does, at times, slip into repetitive action. The number of times Cilka was employed by and then removed from the hospital made my head spin! But a heartfelt story with, at its core, a testimony of the endurance of the human spirit in the face of unbearable suffering. So interesting to read something about the Gulags as well.