Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris

The resilience of the human spirit.

From Czechoslovakia to Auschwitz/Birkenau to Gulag Vorkuta and back to Czechoslovakia Cilka is beautiful and she is a survivor. Her body may be taken, used, and abused but her soul and memories cannot be touched. 

Starting at age 16, Cilka's journey through pain, terror, death, friendship, betrayal, and finally love is gently traversed through flashbacks. The plot is carefully constructed and, in the end, the parts are greater than the whole. Morris’ careful research and interviews of Lale Sokolov creates a historical novel that plumbs the depths of systems that oppress and compromise the human spirit. Characters are so real the reader will remember them as people who lived and died under circumstances hard to imagine, yet clearly drawn. The cover draws one into the journey and dismemberment that comes through years of survival in concentration camps and gulags. Although this is a continuance of Morris’ novel Tattooist of Auschwitz, it is a stand-alone novel.

This book will be released 10/1/2019