CILKA’S JOURNEY by Heather Morris

The first thing I have to say about this book is it will without a doubt make you weep deep hard ugly heartfelt tears. If it doesn’t you don’t have a heart or empathy for anyone. It’s a very sad but also true story of a young girl, Cilka,who had more compassion, love, honor, selflessness, heart, grit and the gift to give than anyone I have ever read about. This is also the first book I have ever read about someone who was in a concentration camp then prison for being in said camp. I’ve seen a couple of movies about concentration camps and the Nazi hells, but this is the first book. It’s a hard one for sure. It’s so well written and so emotional. You feel the pain of this young girl.  What she went through  and endured at the hands of men who thought of a race as property. Thought they were not worthy of living. This is the sequel to THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ but can be read as a stand alone. Thank goodness because right now I don’t believe I could handle reading the TATTOOIST.

This book takes you into the depths of a hell that a girl lived through. I have to admit I’m not at all sure I would have survived. She was given choices that kept her alive. To down her for accepting these choices is awful. For anyone to say that these people had choices has no idea what living in hell is like. This book makes you feel like you were there. At least it did me. It was beyond anything I could ever imagine happening yet it did. One day you are a child worrying about getting your license to drive and the next you are dragged away from everything you ever knew and treated like you are the lowest form of life. Cilka was such an inspiration. She was such a king young woman/child. She had a chance to leave and gave it to her friend and that friends child. She did these things many times. Put others before herself. She was forced to sleep with officers in charge in Auschwitz. Raped. Then she was sent to prison for conspiring with the enemy for being a survivor. For choosing to live instead of giving up and dying. She did what she had to do. She found happiness after so much hardship. She learned that she was not a horrible person for things she did that was out of her control. She found love and lived. Cilka was a very strong person whom I admire greatly. This book was so well written. It was so well put together.

At the end of this book keep reading. Read the NOTE FROM HEATHER MORRIS thru the very end of the book. You will learn even more about this amazing author and what research she put into this book. I’m so happy that I read every single word even though I had to lay this book down several times and get up and walk around because of weeping so hard. This is truly a great read. Sad yes. Very very sad but it’s one that I think everyone should read. Everyone should know what happened.

Thank you #NetGalley and #StMartin’sPress for the honor of reading this book. Also to Heather Morris for researching and writing this book.

I would give this book a million stars if I could. It’s definitely a 5 kleenex and 5 star book that I highly recommend.