Podcast Summary: New Books Network
Episode: Diane Botnick, "Becoming Sarah" (She Writes Press, 2025)
Host: G.P. Gottlieb
Date: December 16, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode of the New Books Network features a moving conversation with debut novelist Diane Botnick about her forthcoming work, Becoming Sarah. The novel traces the life of Sarah, a baby improbably born and raised in Auschwitz, as she navigates the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust, reinvents herself multiple times, and passes on the burden and memory of survival to her descendants. The discussion explores memory, identity, displacement, the evolution of belonging, and the unique challenges of writing imagined survival in the face of history.
Main Discussion Points & Insights
1. Inspiration and Genesis of Becoming Sarah [03:01]
- Loneliness of the Last Survivor: Botnick describes her original inspiration as the moment she realized there will one day be only one Holocaust survivor left. She reflects on "this incredibly lonely moment in the world."
- Fragmented Identity: Inspired by a Holocaust Museum interview with an orphaned boy, she ponders, "how we survive and how we create our own identity when we have nothing to lean on."
- Novel’s Conception: These threads merge in the imagined life of Sarah, who survives the camps without memory of her past.
Quote:
"It struck me...there was going to come a time, most likely in my lifetime, when there might be, like, one Holocaust survivor remaining on Earth. And they might not even know...And it just felt like this incredibly lonely moment..."
—Diane Botnick [03:06]
2. Historical Possibility and Fictional Choices [04:24]
- Survivability of Children in Camps: Botnick clarifies that while some infants survived the camps, her depiction leans into magical realism—Sarah’s survival is presented as highly improbable but not impossible.
- Solidarity Among Women: Research revealed that surviving women often protected one another, influencing Sarah's passage from caretaker to caretaker.
Quote:
"I wanted to make sure that this baby was like no other baby. She’s a complete invention. I didn’t want to steal anyone else’s life or pretend I knew this particular person in real life."
—Diane Botnick [05:02]
3. Postwar Orphanage and Identity Formation [06:15]
- Orphaned Children After Liberation: Sarah travels on a death march and ends up at Bergen Belsen, which becomes a Displaced Persons camp post-liberation. Placement in new families—often non-Jewish, sometimes via informal or black market arrangements—was the lot of many orphans.
- Taking a Name: Sarah receives her name from an adoptive Christian family, blending their surname into her new identity—Sarah Fogel.
Quote:
"There were really no Jewish families to place them with. There were very few Jewish families left in Germany right there. So they would have to go to non-Jewish families."
—Diane Botnick [10:14]
4. The Shifting Meaning of Survival [10:42]
- Auschwitz as ‘Home’: As Sarah grows, her strongest point of identity is Auschwitz itself; when asked if she’s Jewish, she replies, "I'm Auschwitz." Her lack of memory complicates her own sense of legitimacy as a survivor.
- Impostor Syndrome: Sarah wrestles with the idea of being a ‘fraud’—having the identity of a survivor, but without a conscious memory of the horror.
Quote:
"She ends up feeling kind of like a fraud in a lot of ways, but she doesn’t really know."
—Diane Botnick [12:13]
5. Love, Family, and Disrupted Morality [12:20], [16:07]
- Romantic Relationships: Sarah has an affair with Sasha, a Russian guard—rooted in her romanticized view of the Russian liberators, and later with her married boss in America, reflecting her uncertain grasp of social and familial norms.
- Parenting in Exile: Sarah’s insecurity about her right to her child and how to parent with no moral inheritance is central, as is her reliance on the community of women to help raise her daughter.
Quote:
"She has no sense of what a family really means. So to disrupt one doesn’t feel...It takes her a while to understand that this is not a good path."
—Diane Botnick [16:30]
6. Generational Struggles and Assimilation [17:51]
- Malka and Ruthie: Malka is Sarah’s first American-born child; Sarah’s protectiveness is coupled with an emotional detachment that recurs through generations. Ruthie, in contrast, is fully assimilated—unashamed of her roots and able to pursue independent goals.
- The Search for Belonging: Ruthie’s romance with Noah, a charismatic Jewish leader from Chicago, fills an unrecognized existential void and enables her to establish her own chosen identity.
Quote:
"Ruthie...really wants to make her way in the life and become independent, but stay part of a family."
—Diane Botnick [20:13]
7. Settings and Geography of Displacement [23:15]
- From Poland to New York to Ohio: Botnick’s own familiarity with New York and Ohio grounds the novel in real locations, contrasting with imagined segments set in Poland and Germany.
- Immigration as Reinvention: Each move marks a stage of identity re-forging.
8. The 100th Anniversary of Auschwitz’s Liberation [25:10]
- Commemorative Climax: The novel culminates with Sarah and fellow survivors on stage for Auschwitz’s centennial. Botnick rejects the “last survivor” trope, instead focusing on collective memory and symbolic closure.
- Generational Impact: Sarah’s granddaughter takes charge of the gala’s technical production—a symbolic convergence of history and future.
Quote:
"There’s no way I can like, basically kill them all off just to get to this last person...I just wanted it to feel like some kind of big opera or something."
—Diane Botnick [26:08]
9. Looking Ahead: New Work [27:28]
- Current Writing Project: Botnick is working on a new piece—a woman’s life in fragments from first-person perspectives—exploring memory and identity in a new literary style.
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “How do I call myself a survivor when I don’t even remember what I survived?”
—Diane Botnick [11:25] - “Something occurs to her that sleeping with somebody’s husband is not about friendship.”
—Diane Botnick [16:50] - “Walter is the first one that is just simply in love with her. He’s not trying to save her from anything. He’s just trying to be with her and love her.”
—Diane Botnick [19:11] - “I just wanted it to feel like some kind of big opera or something...she looks out over the crowd and sees her whole life coming together.”
—Diane Botnick [27:00]
Key Segment Timestamps
- [03:01] – Botnick on the initial spark for the novel
- [04:24] – Research on camp-born children and invention of Sarah
- [06:32] – Sarah’s journey through displaced persons camps and naming
- [10:42] – The complications of Sarah’s survivor identity
- [12:20] – Sarah’s romantic relationships and moral ambiguity
- [17:51] – Intergenerational relationships: Malka and Ruthie
- [23:41] – Settings: from Poland to the US
- [25:27] – The 100th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation as novel’s climax
- [27:28] – Botnick's next literary project
Tone & Style
The conversation is simultaneously analytical and compassionate, blending deep empathy for survivor experiences with an honest look at the ambiguities of memory, identity, and inheritance. Both host and author maintain a tone of respect, insight, and openness to the unresolved.
Conclusion
Diane Botnick’s Becoming Sarah offers an evocative, imaginative journey through survival, memory, and familial legacy, bridged across continents and generations. This interview provides a compelling look into the novel’s creation, the weight of Holocaust memory, and the ethical and artistic choices shaping a narrative that seeks not only to remember but to reckon and look forward.