Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

From a concentration camp to a prison camp...from one horror to the next.

Even though she had no choice but to do what she was told, Cilka was charged by the Russian government with collaborating with the Nazis and given a sentence of 15 years of hard labor in a prison in Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia.

The conditions and treatment in the prison were no better than in the concentration camp, but Cilka knew how to stay alive since she had learned what you needed to do and that was to just do what you are told.

We follow Cilka as she remembers her lovely childhood and the horrors in the concentration camp as well as learn of her current, unbearable situation in the prison.  We also get to re-visit Lale and Gita as Cilka’s memories revert to the time in the concentration camp.

The reader sees the atrocities women were subjected to in the concentration camp and the prison.

There are some good people that Cilka meets in the prison hospital where she works which is a blessing to be out of the brutal temperatures loading coal into buckets day in and day out.

You will cringe and be horrified at what goes on as Ms. Morris again minces no words and keeps your interest with her marvelous writing style and research.

Historical fiction fans and those who have read THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ will not want to miss this book.  5/5

This book was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.