BECOMING SARAH

Botnick’s multigenerational historical novel chronicles the life of a woman born and orphaned in 1942 in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Sarah’s mother dies during childbirth. The women living in her mother’s Auschwitz bunkhouse nurse and tend to the fragile infant (“because in night’s meat locker a baby took up little room and gave off much heat, soon there was a queue of women”), who, miraculously, remains undiscovered by the camp guards. Somehow, she survives the bitter cold and endemic starvation, and as the Allies approach victory, Auschwitz is liberated and the little girl without a name is taken to Birkenau and then to the Displaced Persons camp in Bergen-Belsen. There she remains, a troublemaking loner, until she is adopted in 1948 by Herr and Frau Vogelmann, a German couple from neighboring Celle, Germany. During her time in Bergen-Belsen, she picked up the name Sarah, which in Hebrew means “Princess” (it is a popular name among the young camp survivors); now, she becomes Sarah Vogelmann (which she later changes to Sarah Vogel). She is satisfied: Finally, she has a family, an identity—until she turns 15 and is handed over to Herr Weiss (she rooms in his attic and is forced to study the New Testament and lap up “night’s milk” from Weiss’ stomach). In 1961, when Germany is divided, she runs away to Berlin. It is the beginning of the long journey that, in 1963, brings her and Sasha, her young daughter, to Queens, New York. The traumas and emotional scars she has accumulated along the way remain with her throughout her long life, and, in turn, are reflected in her daughters and granddaughters. First, there is Sasha, born in Germany, a well-behaved child until she uncovers some of Sarah’s lies. As an angry teenager, Sasha becomes pregnant and gives birth to a daughter, Malcah, who Sarah raises as her own after Sasha leaves home. Then there is Ruth, a surprise blessing born toSarah in 1990, when the protagonist is 48 years old. And finally, there is Ruth’s daughter, the whip-smart Moll, born in 2020.

Sarah is a complex and tragic hero, a Holocaust survivor with a hardened outer shell and a fierce determination that keeps her moving forward despite suffering multiple tragedies. She is also damaged, trapped in the lies she has created to fill in the blanks of a family and heritage she never had a chance to know (even her name is a fabrication). Lyrically and meticulously composed, Botnick’s novel plumbs the emotional depths of the Vogel women, from childhood through adulthood. Not a traditional Holocaust story, Botnick’s narrative examines the effects of the detritus left behind by the great atrocity on those who survived as well as their offspring. The novel is rich with early postwar historical detail, spotlighting the lingering virulent antisemitism in both Europe and America. With its 100-year time span, ending in the not-too-distant future, the story revisits a century’s worth of major historical events and then adds a bit of futuristic whimsy, which is entertaining but a bit of a narrative jolt.

Painful, dramatic, and ultimately triumphant.