Cilka's Journey

I was late reading The Tattooist of Auschwitz so by the time I read that Heather Morris book, everyone was already talking about Cilka's Journey. Both books were extremely well-written  and easy to read, if that can be said about a Holocaust novel. But where Tattooist was and continues to be the most hopeful Holocaust novel that I've read, Cilka's Journey was much more gut-wrenching. Where Tattooist is a story of hope and love, Cilka's Journey is a story about bravery and the will to live.

Cilka is a more minor character in The Tattooist of Auschwitz. She becomes one of the good friends of Gita. This is Cilka's story after she is liberated from Auschwitz. I had no idea that someone who had been imprisoned in Auschwitz for 3 years might have gone on to sentenced to years of being locked up at a Gulag in Siberia.

I knew nothing of the post-WW II Siberia or Siberian Gulags. I must have not read anything from the blurb of Cilka's Journey so I really didn't know what this novel was going to be about.

Cilka's Journey could be read as a standalone book since enough recollections are a part of this book to make the backstory from Tattooist not completely necessary. But I'm glad I read them in order. As with the first book, the author's note at the end of the book really clinched the book for me. I highly recommend them both.