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Hanna Weisner
Writing and Inquiry
Mrs. Wertz-Orbaugh
November 10, 2014
The Life of Lucille Eichengreen
For my individual inquiry assignment, I chose to read the novel From Ashes to Life: My
Memories of the Holocaust written by Lucille Eichengreen. After doing research in the library I
finally chose this novel because I wanted to read a personal diary of a survivor of the Holocaust.
I also wanted to read a diary of a young female to further understand the struggles that women
experienced during the Holocaust and to become more knowledgeable on young female Jews.
I found this novel to be an interesting read that I thoroughly enjoyed. I enjoyed this book
because I was able to submerse myself in the very descriptive writing. This made it seem like I
was with Lucille seeing what she saw as she lived through one of the most horrible experiences
of all time. Lucille spent almost three years in the Lodz Jewish ghetto on Pawia Street in Poland,
so a portion of her diary was about her life and struggles in the ghetto. I found this to be
interesting because I did not know very much about Jewish ghettos and I learned a lot about how
ghettos were organized and what kind of jobs the Jews were forced to work while imprisoned in
Lodz. Lucille had a number of jobs in the ghetto, including office clerk work, and laboriously
cleaning up rocks form a construction site. Lucilles motive for working in harsh conditions was
receiving a midday soup which was only provided to the employed. Jews in ghettos were forced
to labor in useless jobs in order to survive and not starve to death.

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What surprised me most about this novel was how resilient Lucille and other Jews who
survived the concentration camps. After Lucille was liberated by the British Army at BergenBelson she was abruptly thrown into working for the British Army as a translator because she
knew German, English, and Polish. She had to quickly adapt and readjust into real life again as
she worked for the military. She was also forced to face her fears when she was used as
translator for the trials of the very same Kapos that inflicted such horrific physical and emotional
turmoil to her. She struggled with not being afraid of the Nazis after her liberation, in her dairy
she states Although I told myself there was no longer any reason to be afraid, the old fears
persisted, (page 152). Lucilles brave actions of facing her fears and helping the British was
astonishing to me. If I was in her shoes, I dont know if I could be as brave and valiant as she
was.
I wish that when Lucille wrote her diary and memorial of her experience, that she had
elaborated more on her experience after the war. I thought her recount of her liberation and how
she worked with the British army was really interesting. I enjoyed this part of the book because I
was really relived and happy that Lucille survived the concentration camps and all of the
atrocities she had seen. I also liked that she was brave enough to help capture her torturers and
that she faced her fears to help all Jews who were affected by the Holocaust. I wish she had
elaborated on this part of her dairy because every other book Ive read about the Holocaust
focused mostly on the actual Holocaust and war and not on the aftermath. I learned a lot about
the various hoops that victims had to jump through in order to return to a more normal life. The
government did very little to help those who had been liberated to find their family or leave the
country if they wished. To recuperate and help leave her past behind her, Lucille even changed
her name to Celia once she got into the United States. She changed her name to be more

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American helped her to fit into her new home and start a new life after the Holocaust. She
sacrificed her name to help her survive and forget the horrifying things she endured.
This book directly relates to the Holocaust because it is an honest recollection of
someones true story of their suffering during the Holocaust. This diary is proof of the atrocities
that occurred to Lucille and her family and friends. Through Lucilles story, I learned a lot about
the Holocaust in a perspective of a young woman. How the women felt naked, shamed, and
inhuman when they were stripped of their hair. Lucille felt like an animal because she could no
longer wear pretty dresses or look forward to learning at school and being with her family and
friends. This dairy is a powerful memorial and tribute to those who suffered and died during the
Holocaust. Lucilles story is so much like thousands of other Jews who were victims of the Nazi
command.
I found Lucilles experiences after her liberation from Bergen-Belson to be extremely
interesting. I havent heard much about what the surviving Jews did after they were rescued or
what services were available to them or even how they found their remaining family members
and got back on their feet. Lucilles journey to normalcy seemed to me like a game of luck and
chance. She was helped by friends she had made and other survivors because she had lost
everyone to the wrath of the Nazis, but her passage to the United States was still difficult and
took several weeks to organize and pull off. She only obtained her passport to the United States
by finding the former French prime minister who was also at Bergen-Belson. He obtained her a
passport because she shared the terrible experience that he lived. When Lucille reflected on this
experience she wrote The documents were ready and waiting. Just like the ghetto, I thought-you
had to know someone to accomplish the impossible (Page 174).

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From Ashes to Life: My Memories of the Holocaust was a very eye opening and heartwrenching book about Lucille Eichengreens life and the Holocaust. I learned a tremendous
amount about the Holocaust, including information about the Jewish ghettos and the aftermath of
the war. I tremendously enjoyed reading this diary because it allowed me to better understand the
Holocaust. I am very appreciative that Lucille wrote and published her story so that millions of
people like me could better understand how horrifying the Holocaust and the Nazi regime really
was.