It is unimaginable that anyone could have endured Hitler and be led from Auschwitz-Birkenau to The Vorkuta Gulag in Siberia and live to tell the story. Cilka’s Journey is the story of Cilka, a real life hero, who at 16 years old was taken with her family to Auschwitz, where she was raped by senior SS officers. She survived Auschwitz-Birkenau only to be sent directly to Siberia for sleeping and collaborating with the enemy. After 3 years in Auschwitz Cilka endured 10 years in Siberia where she worked in the mines, in below freezing temperatures. In the Gulag she was once again raped over and over again. In these situations the common theme among survivors is the guilt they feel for what they had to do to survive. Until Cilka’s Journey I had not read much about Stalin and the forced labor camps in Siberia. Heather Morris has written another outstanding book, Cilka’s Journey follows Cilka’s life from Morris’s first book The Tattooist of Auschwitz but can be read as a stand alone. One quote that stands out to me from the book is when Cilka is in the Gulag and says “This pain is my punishment for surviving and I need to feel it, live it.” Cilka’s Journey comes out October 1, 2019 make sure to read it, it is important to support works on the holocaust so that we never forget.