True confession: I haven’t yet read The Tattooist of Auschwitz, despite wanting to – just haven’t felt mentally or emotionally stable enough on any given day to get into it. And When I received it, I did not realize that Cilka’s Journey is a sequel, so my review is perhaps not fair…but here goes anyway.
When sixteen-year old Cilka is sent to the notorious concentration camp at Auschwita-Birkenau in 1942, she is singled out by the commandant because of her beauty…and she does what she has to do to survive. Despite the fact that she was an unwilling participant, after the camp is liberated, she is sent to a prison camp in Siberia, branded as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy. It’s maddening, because it seems she has never really had a choice, but has only done what she needed to do just to stay alive.
At her second prison, this time in a Gulag in Siberia, Cilka is once again the target of unwanted attention (to say the least) from her captors. Conditions are unspeakably harsh. Fortunately, there is a female doctor who takes Cilka under her wing and as a result, Cilka learns to care for her fellow prisoners who are sick and suffering. Although the story is ultimately designed to be uplifting due to Cilka learning that she still has the capacity for love as well as her role as a lifesaver in the harsh environment, for me it was a difficult read. Again, I perhaps need to read the earlier book to judge it fairly, and Morris’s skill as a writer is obvious, especially as the reader cannot help but ache for Cilka and cheer for every small nugget of happiness she is able to find.
Stories of imprisonment during the war are more common, but this book is an excellent example of the way that stories about those imprisoned in the years following World War II are equally harrowing. In Siberia, conditions are brutal and it is a difficult read. I would definitely recommend this for fans of historical fiction and readers who are ready to follow the travails of a strong young woman who does whatever it takes to get through each day. Based on factual material, the notes by the author at the end are stunning (but don’t read them first: spoiler alert!!!) Well written, and with thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley, I was prepared to give this one four stars (with recognition that the loss of one star reflects the level of my sadness rather than the merit of the book). But after pondering the amount of feelings it brought out, and the way it made me think yet again about the insanity of war, it’s a ***** five star book.