A small light in one of the darkest times in human history
Cilka’s Journey, an accompaniment to The Tattooist of Auschwitz, is not a complete love story that beats out all odds like its predecessor, but it is a story of the excruciating loss brought on people through Hitler and Stalin, and the empowering, hopeful journey of Cilka Klein, whom Lale dubbed as the bravest woman he’d ever met.
Cilka leaves Auschwitz and is immediately transported to a Serbian prison in the coldest part of Russia to serve a 15-year sentence for sleeping with the enemy after being raped by the commanding officers of the Auschwitz camp. From there, she is forced to see countless more deaths and face obstacles that seem impossible for one person to bear. There’s no specific secret behind how she makes it through each day. She survives, hopes, and perseveres. And the readers bear witness to a small light in one of the darkest times in human history.
Heather Morris in The Tattooist of Auschwitz was able to get a firsthand account from Lale, her main character in that book, and his true story, which is almost unbelievable is extremely powerful. Cilka is someone Lale includes in his account, and Morris wanted to continue her story in this book. And while she didn’t have a firsthand account, the pieces Morris researched and put together in Cilka’s Journey are just as profound and moving as the first book. The humiliation women have experienced during war being brought out into the open is astonishing but a necessary story to be added to our historical knowledge.
Cilka leaves Auschwitz and is immediately transported to a Serbian prison in the coldest part of Russia to serve a 15-year sentence for sleeping with the enemy after being raped by the commanding officers of the Auschwitz camp. From there, she is forced to see countless more deaths and face obstacles that seem impossible for one person to bear. There’s no specific secret behind how she makes it through each day. She survives, hopes, and perseveres. And the readers bear witness to a small light in one of the darkest times in human history.
Heather Morris in The Tattooist of Auschwitz was able to get a firsthand account from Lale, her main character in that book, and his true story, which is almost unbelievable is extremely powerful. Cilka is someone Lale includes in his account, and Morris wanted to continue her story in this book. And while she didn’t have a firsthand account, the pieces Morris researched and put together in Cilka’s Journey are just as profound and moving as the first book. The humiliation women have experienced during war being brought out into the open is astonishing but a necessary story to be added to our historical knowledge.