A history too often forgotten in the USA

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The image of a Nazi collaborator is often one of an individual who was made wealthy off business deals with the invaders. In Cilka’s Journey, the collaborator is instead a woman who was imprisoned in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Upon the camp’s liberation by Soviet soldiers, her gift for languages and her repeated rape by SS officers label her a spy who slept with the enemy and Cilka is sentenced to fifteen years in the Gulag. Her time in the Gulag is what is covered in this novel, with flashbacks to her childhood and her time in the Nazi camps.

Cilka was a real person, who survived Auschwitz-Birkenau to end up in the Gulag. Morris is clear that this is a fictionalized version of her story, with some characters created from fusions of real individuals or from pure fiction to serve the needs of the story. There is one plot component that seems abrupt and out of place to me, but based on notes from the author, I think some of the story may have been omitted to protect the privacy of Cilka’s extended family.

A good choice for readers of Lilac Girls, this story does not shy away from the harsh reality of life in a concentration camp, and discusses some of the problems and challenges specific to women within the camps, but is not especially graphic. It would also be a good companion to Ruta Sepetey’s Between Shades of Gray for adults and older teens, offering a different perspective on the same concentration camp system.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher via BookishFirst for an honest review.