Cilka's Journey
1 journaler for this copy...
This author's other WWI novel 'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' was so compelling, I want to read this one as well.
If you've read The Tattooist of Auschwitz by this author, then you'll want to pick this one up, as well. We first met Cilka from Lale's story, and now we get to learn more about her journey. I appreciated the author being up front about this being a work of fiction, based on real life events. Be sure to read the author's notes in the back of the book for more information about what is true and what is imagined. I'm not really a fan of non-fiction books, so for me this worked in that this book reads more like a fictional account.
As with all books related to the Holocaust, this one is gut-wrenching, horrifying, and absolutely unfair. It’s astounding in itself that Cilka, a 16-year old girl, could survive the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau while enduring sexual and emotional abuse and being forced to do unthinkable things in order to stay alive. But it's even more unimaginable that upon liberation of the death camp, she was then sentenced to 15 years in a Gulag prison camp in frozen remote Siberia for the crime of "aiding the enemy".
Similar to Lale's story in Tattooist, Cilka finds ways to survive in the Gulag - and she forms bonds with fellow prisoners and others she meets that help with that survival and give her hope for the future.
This author has done a lot of research to put this story together, and overall it may not be perfect, but it's still a very worthwhile read. I'll be recommending this to friends who like the WWII genre.
As with all books related to the Holocaust, this one is gut-wrenching, horrifying, and absolutely unfair. It’s astounding in itself that Cilka, a 16-year old girl, could survive the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau while enduring sexual and emotional abuse and being forced to do unthinkable things in order to stay alive. But it's even more unimaginable that upon liberation of the death camp, she was then sentenced to 15 years in a Gulag prison camp in frozen remote Siberia for the crime of "aiding the enemy".
Similar to Lale's story in Tattooist, Cilka finds ways to survive in the Gulag - and she forms bonds with fellow prisoners and others she meets that help with that survival and give her hope for the future.
This author has done a lot of research to put this story together, and overall it may not be perfect, but it's still a very worthwhile read. I'll be recommending this to friends who like the WWII genre.
Giving this to KariAnne - she can either pass along to others or give back to me later.
