BOOK REVIEW: CILKA'S JOURNEY

Cilka's Journey 

by Heather Morris

Firstly I would like to start by clarifying the content used to write this novel, this is a "fictional" story based on some information relayed to the author by Lale Sokolov (The Tatooist of Auschwitz).  Heather Morris is clear on this subject at the end of the novel when she relays where she gained her research, what contributed to it's creation and what she hopes a reader will get from this story.

This is the story of Cilka Klein, a jewish prisoner of Auschwitz who at the age of 16 is wrenched from her family and placed in the women's camp Birkenau, to enable herself and her sister Magda to survive she finds herself not only put in front of Menghele but also ends up in Hut 25, this is where the sick and dying go.

Cilka manages to survive however, carries a large amount of survivors guilt so when she is brought in front of the Russian's who have free'd her she is devastated to find freedom is to evade her.  Cilka is emprisoned in poland where she is a prisoner for conspiring with the Nazi's before finding herself again on a transport train with hundreds of others sent to the arctic circle and arrives at Vorkuta Gulag.

From her arrival Cilka again finds herself with limited options to protect herself as she realises the Russian gulags are a concentration camp by any other name, from her arrival she takes a path and aligns herself with Boris a senior criminal within the camp who can offer her protection but at a price.  As the story goes on we follow Cilka and her fellow hut mates as they traverse the situation laid before them, Cilka will find herself in a situation where the truth is not easy to relay yet she manages to maintain the strength and fortitude of character to continue to help those in need and continually put others health and happiness before her own.

This book is a strong story about an astounding women in Cilka and the things in life she has to contend with, despite the negative publicity this book has received in the press, if this book is taken as a fictional story you will find it unputdownable.  

What astounds me on this book however, is how little information on the Russian gulags has been taught in the UK schooling system, the political, criminal and religious prisoners are exposed to equally as discriminatory and savage surroundings as those enforced by the Nazi's and yet is little discussed.  It also reminds me that I need to read more on this topic as well as the stark realities of the link to Jim Crow and US prisons using prisoners to manufacture products and undertake manual labour roles for companies during their imprisonments and it is both astounding and devastating that this behaviour still is deemed acceptable and undertaken in the current times.

I gave this book 4* and not 5 purely as this was not a biography/true story as that of Lale Solokov, had it been possible for the author to draw on more facts about Cilka's life both before, during and after her imprisonment I think this would be essential reading to expose the atrocities experienced during this time in history.