Sarah's Key Quotes

“I’ll find a way to go back and save him, I’ll find a way.”

“A month or so ago, her mother had sewn the stars on all her clothes. On all the family’s clothes, except her little brother’s. Before that their identity cards had been stamped with the word “Jew” or “Jewess.”

“Sometimes, Miss Jarmond, it’s not easy to bring back the past. There are unpleasant surprises. The truth is harder than ignorance.”

“Peace has a bitter taste. And the future is foreboding.”

“I cannot bear the weight of my past. Yet I cannot throw away the key to your cupboard.”

“Why was being Jewish so dreadful? Why were Jews being treated like this?”

“The eyes of a woman in the face of a ten-year-old girl.”

“I wanted to tell them, that I knew, that I remembered, and that I could not forget.′

“She did not bow her head in shame. She stood straight, her chin high. She wiped away the tears.”

“She couldn’t imagine why there was such a difference between those children and her. She couldn’t imagine why she and all these other people with her had to be treated this way. Who decided this, and what for?”

“The girl wondered: These policemen... didn’t they have families, too? Didn’t they have children? Children they went home to? How could they treat children this way? Were they told to do so, or did they act this way naturally? Were they in fact machines, not human beings? She looked closely at them. They seemed of flesh and bone. They were men. She couldn’t understand.”

“I longed for the birth, for the sensation of the baby’s head pressing down through me, for that unmistakable, pure, painful sensation of bringing a child into the world, albeit with pain, with tears. I wanted those tears, I wanted that pain. I did not want the pain of emptiness, the tears of a barren, scarred womb.”

“I sat on the narrow bed and took the Sarah file out of my bag. Sarah was the only person I could bear thinking about right now. Finding her felt like a sacred mission, felt like the only possible way to keep my head up, to dispel the sadness in which my life had become immersed.”

“A tiny, perfect little girl. Had he been disappointed? I wondered. I wasn’t. This child meant so much to me. I had fought for her. I had not given in. She was my victory.”

“In that sheltered, gentle life that seemed far away, the girl would have believed her mother. She used to believe everything her mother said. But in this harsh new world, the girl felt she had grown up. She felt older than her mother. She knew the other women were saying the truth. She knew the rumors were true. She did not know how to explain this to her mother. Her mother had become like a child.”

“She had grown up too much to be afraid anymore. She was no longer a baby. Her parents would be proud of her. That’s what she wanted them to be. Proud because she had escaped from that camp. Proud because she was going to Paris, to save her brother. Proud, because she wasn’t afraid.”

“Sarah. She never left me. She had changed me, forever. Her story, her suffering, I carried them within me.”

“You have to let go... you have to put it behind you...just get on with your life.”

“You’re playing with Pandora’s box. Sometimes it’s better not to open it. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.”

“You get attached to places, you know. Like people, I suppose.”