Sadness for women....

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shelly leuthold Avatar

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Reading the selection from Heather Morris' new novel, Cilka's Journey, you walk away with how incredibly sad and maddening it was to be a women in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Again, from hidden moments of history, you quickly discover that first these innocent Jewish women were stolen from family, homes and communities by the Nazis, forced into labor camp, then "raped" again by the Russians upon given their freedom. These women did what they had to do to survive. How can they truly been held accountable for their actions when they did not have freedom of choice in the matter? We turn a blind's eye to history and think labor camps were liberated and everyone was given their freedom along with food, clothes and paid trip back home. Unfortunately that turns out not to be the case, when it comes to Cilka's story. We find the book cover with a women who is alone and whose back is to us wearing a blue woolen coat. The train station of Auschwitz-Birkenau is in the distance but can she ever really put the memories of what happened there behind her? Is there a hint since her suitcase is in her left hand and train station at Auschwitz-Birkenau is in the lower right hand side at a distance? Is the blue coat symbolic in some way? Kinda like Spielberg's Schindler's List of the girl in the red coat? How will Cilka survive? Does she reunite with her sister? Does she ever return home? Does she get her happy ending? Does she continue to look out for Josie? Inquiring minds definitely will want to see this historical fiction to its conclusion.