Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

Author: Heather Morris 

Title: Cilka's Journey 

Publisher: Zaffre 

Published: 2019

Pages: 432

Genre: Historical Fiction 

 

     Her beauty saved her life - and condemned her. Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp, in 1942. The Commandant at Birkenau, Schwarzhuber, notices her long beautiful hair and forces her separation from the other women prisoners. Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly given, equals survival. After liberation, Cilka is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to Siberia. But what choice did she have? And where did the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was sent to Auschwitz when still a child? In a Siberian prison camp, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she makes an impression on a woman doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing. Cilka begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions. 

     A few years back I read The Tattooist of Auschwitz a book that blends fiction with the real lives of people who were there. Needless to say, the story stuck with me for a good long while after I had finished it. The author had done such a great job of captivating her readers about some of the most horrific situations imaginable. It is a narrative that has also been written about at great length. Books about the holocaust can be found on pretty much any bookstore shelf. I know as I have read a great many of them. But there are other tales still to be told, specifically what came after for a great many. We all relish in those tales about how they survived, that after the liberation they sort out new lives. But for some, the Russian army was not their great salvation. For them, it was only the being of another set of horrors. 

     Maybe this is in part because we called them our allies. People assume that our treatment of survivors was their treatment. But as is explored in this book life rarely turns out the way we hope for. In Cika's Journey author Heather Morris seeks to rectify that situation.  Going in I must confess I really knew very little about the treatment of survivors by the Russian government. More so how some were tried and sentenced to hard labor in the Siberian gulags. These men and women were deemed to have collaborated with the enemy and thus could not be trusted and must be punished. Know we can all judge what these people did from a distance but t is a whole different matter to step into the shoes and walk. For me, it seems Cilka had very little choice in her action in Birkenau. She did what she had to not only survive but also help others if she could. This does mean that through the course of the book we are left to wonder what choice we would have made in her situation.

     The author has once again done an amazing job of getting her readers completely invested in these people. Whilst the situations they are in can be hard for us to imagine ourselves in, Morris brings it all down to a very human level. Her characters are deeply fleshed out that we form these connections to them. This bond between the women shows that no matter how horrific the situation becomes they had each other's backs as best they could. This deep need for connection holds them together in the hopes that better times are coming. But it's also about Cilka's need to find redemption for her perceived actions. She struggles with the choices she made despite having relatively little leeway in what took place. But it is human nature to wrestle with the perceived sins of our past. We want to atone for them no matter how much it ends up putting ourselves at risk. 

     This book shone a light on a part of history that I knew little about. I am sure that will now change as I search out more information and try and get a better understanding of what took place. Morris manages to once again bring a very real face to light in this blending of fact and fiction. I always find books about such topics hard to read. They are however in my opinion necessary. And Morris does a great job of bringing their names to as many people as possible.