Cilka's Journey

Content Warning: This study guide contains depictions of genocide, rape, sexual assault, suicide, and drug addiction.

In January 1945, 18-year-old Cilka Klein is in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which the Soviet Army has recently liberated. A Soviet soldier tells Cilka that she is free, but she remains in the camp. By February, the Soviet Army interrogates the remaining prisoners to identify any enemies of the Soviet Union. Cilka waits in one of the camp blocks until a soldier takes her to the army’s headquarters, where she enters a room with four men. They question her about what she has done during the three years of her incarceration at Auschwitz and accuse her of being a sex worker and a spy. Although Cilka explains that she did what she had to do in order to survive, she is sent to Kraków for further questioning.

Montelupich Prison, Kraków, July 1945. A soldier takes Cilka from her cell to a room with an officer sitting behind a desk. He tells her that she has been convicted of engaging in sex work, espionage, and working with the enemy and has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in the Soviet Gulag system. He passes her a piece of paper to sign, acknowledging that she understands.