Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

Cilka's Journey by Heather Morris

From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on a riveting true story of love and resilience.

Her beauty saved her -- and condemned her.

Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival.

When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was send to Auschwitz when she was still a child?

In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.

Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.

From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka's journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit--and the will we have to survive.

Heather Morris is a New Zealander who now lives in Australia. She studied and wrote screenplays for several years while working at a large public hospital in Melbourne, one of which was optioned by an Academy Award-winning screenwriter in the United States. Heather met an elderly gentleman in 2003 who'might just have a story worth telling,' according to Heather. Both of their lives were changed the day she met Lale Sokolov. As their connection deepened, Lale started on a voyage of self-discovery, confiding in her the most intimate secrets of his life during the Holocaust. Heather first penned Lale's narrative as a screenplay, which won awards in international competitions, before transforming it into her debut novel, The Tattooist of Auschwitz.