Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Press, and Heather Morris for the opportunity to read and review this book - as with all books involving the atrocities of the Holocaust, it's hard to read and so moving. This is the follow-up to The Tattooist of Auschwitz but definitely also a stand alone read.
Cilka was only 16 when she was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, along with her mother and sister. There, the commandant separates her and puts her in charge of the women awaiting the gas chamber. She learns to do what she must to survive. When the camps are liberated, Cilka is charged with being a prostitute and sleeping with the enemy. She is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia. While overcome with guilt, Cilka still does what she needs to survive. Others notice her intelligence and she begins training as a nurse. The book alternates her time in the gulag with her past at Birkenau.
While based on a true person, this is a book of fiction. However, it brings out more things I didn't know about the horrible conditions of those who lived through this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment