When we meet Cilka, introduced to us, in the Tattooist of Auschwitz Cilka is repeatedly raped by two senior SS officers. Cilka had entered the camp when she was only 16 an, in her own words, did what she needed to do in order to survive. She had accepted the advances of the SS officers as a life saving strategy and consequently received favours and some privileges in the camp. Ultimately Cilka hadn’t any choice in having been singled out by the officers, but nevertheless felt great shame about how she had survived. From what I recall from reading the Tattooist of Auschwitz (it was a while ago now) she had the additional role of hut leader and worked with the guards in loading the women onto the trucks that would take them to the gas chambers. In this role she feigned toughness -speaking and acting harshly towards her fellow Jewish inmates as a cover up, so that they would actually be spared from receiving far worse barbaric treatment from the male guards than that she administered. How a reader feels about Cilka’s actions, I guess, determines how they will feel about the sequel novel, which traces Cilka’s life, post Auschwitz during the ten years she spent sentenced to hard labour in the Gulag Camp. She had been sentenced as a traitor to Slovakia for sleeping with the Nazis and served time amongst political prisoners, desperate women stealing to feed their families and political dissidents. 

On the one hand as a novel Cilka’s Journey is frequently moving, powerful and heart-breaking. We learn of further gang rapes, cruel conditions, mothers separated from their children and in-fighting between the inmates leading to solitary confinement in inhumane conditions. We follow Cilka’s life as she was once again singled out and trained to become a nurse to the other prisoners. Rather like Kristin Hanna’s The Nightingale the writing is very accessible and is a page-turner. I defy any reader to no not care what happens to Cilka at the end of the novel.  On the other hand the character portrayal is, and perhaps it has to be, quite one-dimensional. The question of ‘right and wrong’ in the novel is clear and obvious, but I feel that opportunities are missed to really develop the protagonist’s personality and those she has contact with.  The bullies’ behaviour is excused and explained away as inevitably being part and parcel of having to endure such hardship and quickly forgiven, as shown through the portrayal of Hannah. To be fair to the author, the characters are presented as ‘closed up’, for all kinds of reasons, Cilka, can’t talk about her own past, so perhaps it is the reader who is at fault for wanting more. It is difficult to pinpoint how this ‘closed up’ feeling manifests itself, but, perhaps through the considerable use of the telling of how the characters feel and how the reader should feel towards them comes across as stifling. 

As the story traces Cilka’s life, where she served two thirds of her sentence before being released during Khrushchev’s regime, the reader is left in no doubt of the author’s own sympathy towards Cilka.  This is fair but in some respects this lack of ambiguity presented makes the story seem flatter than it might otherwise. As a style of writing this is fine for a historical account, but less grabbing for a memoir The text can come over across as didactic and almost seems to discourage the reader from thinking independently about the issues explored.