Becoming Sarah

Many people associate the name Auschwitz with death and despair. But life also occurred at the place of horror. Diane Botnick based her novel on one of the few babies who eluded murder and made it out alive.

Becoming Sarah is based on the premise of one of the few babies who managed to leave the grim reality of Auschwitz behind and lived, although Sarah Vogel is entirely fictionalized. I thought the mark of Auschwitz followed Sarah throughout her life and darkness pervaded along the periphery of her life, threatening to submerge her.

The novel is compelling to read because of its matrilineal and matriarchical arch, which is its core. Sarah is a survivor, over and over again, of so many challenging circumstances which probably would have felled a lesser woman. She struggles mightily in the story but she is resourceful and scrappy. From being passed around to different households, to becoming a single mothers, to engineering her immigration to America, Sarah’s perseverance is undaunted.

Although some of her decisions are questionable, Sarah consistently does what it takes to survive and what she believes is best for her family, no matter the emotional cost. To me this made some scenes incredibly awkward, like her interactions with the Blooms during and after the Thanksgiving get together. I don’t know how anyone was able to jauntily carry on as if the tension wasn’t as thick as the mounds of food on the table.

I had sympathy for Sarah for many part of the book because she did not have the best of luck and was forced to slog through difficult quagmires due to the hand that was delivered to her. Other times she seemed remote and detached, especially regarding her relationships with her daughters and granddaughter. I kept asking myself when Sarah was going to catch a break. I also wondered if her character actually enjoyed life or merely existed because she did what was expected. She didn’t really steer her own path, instead it was if she allowed life’s waves to crash her boat over and over again, leaving her rudderless.

I thought Sasha’s character was a difficult personality and I never warmed up to her, especially after she dumped her daughter on Sarah to rear. Sarah faced it all with aplomb, getting a new lease on life, a new relationship plus a later in life bomb shell, which alters her world permanently.

“Becoming Sarah is the poignant, sometimes ruthless portrait of a survivor and of the profound cost of that survival to the women who follow in her wake.” From the back cover.