Sarah’s Key

Sarah’s Key

by

Tatiana De Rosnay

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Sarah’s Key makes teaching easy.

Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski Character Analysis

One of the novel’s two protagonists, along with Julia. Ten-year-old Sarah is arrested with her parents during the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup of 1942. Although both her parents are deported to and murdered at Auschwitz, Sarah manages to escape the internment camp at Beaune-la-Rolande and return to Paris in search of her brother, whom she locked into a secret cupboard for safety on the night of the roundup. Sarah is devastated when she returns to her former apartment and finds her brother, Michel, dead. According to other characters who knew her, such as Gaspard Dufaure (who grew up as Sarah’s adoptive brother), Sarah was never the same after her brother’s death. As a child, Sarah was energetic and hopeful, but as a young woman she is described as serious and melancholy, a young woman who seems much older than her actual age. By the end of the novel, Julia discovers that Sarah’s death in a car accident at age forty was a suicide. The deep grief that Sarah carried with her is hinted at through her journal entries, which surface toward the end of the novel. In her journal, an adult Sarah wrote that she could not bear the grief of her family’s death, and that she often wants to die. Sarah was thus completely changed by her experiences during World War Two, demonstrating incredible bravery but also becoming bitter and depressed. Sarah is referred to as “the girl” for the first third of the novel. Eventually, it is revealed that she is called Sirka (a childhood nickname), but after her friend Rachel is taken away by the Nazis, Sirka asks to be called by the more grownup name Sarah.

Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski Quotes in Sarah’s Key

The Sarah’s Key quotes below are all either spoken by Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski or refer to Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Remembrance and History Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The mother pulled her daughter close to her. The girl could feel the woman’s heart beating through her dressing gown. She wanted to push her mother away. She wanted her mother to stand up straight and look at the men boldly, to stop cowering, to prevent her heart from beating like that, like a frightened animal’s. She wanted her mother to be brave.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Her father looked down at her. He said her name again, very softly. His eyes were still wet, his eyelashes spiked with tears. He put his hand on the back of her neck.
“Be brave, my sweet love. Be brave, as brave as you can.”
She could not cry. Her fear was so great it seemed to engulf everything else, it seemed to suck up every single emotion within her, like a monstrous, powerful vacuum.

Related Characters: Wladyslaw Starzynski (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Related Symbols: The Key
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:

Through the bus’s dusty pane, she recognized one of them, the young red-haired one who had often helped her cross the street on her way home from school. She tapped on the glass to attract his attention. When his eyes locked onto hers, he quickly looked away. He seemed embarrassed, almost annoyed. She wondered why.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), The Policeman
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

But she had seen. She knew what it was. A young woman, her mother’s age, and a small child. The woman had jumped, her child held close, from the highest railing.
From where the girl sat, she could see the dislocated body of the woman, the bloody skull of the child, sliced open like a ripe tomato.
The girl bent her head and cried.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Wladyslaw Starzynski
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

As she looked at Eva and her mother, the girl wondered if her parents had been right to protect her from everything, if they had been right to keep disturbing, bad news away fro her. If they had been right not to explain why so many things had changed from them since the beginning of the war. Like when Eva’s husband never came back last year. He had disappeared. Where? Nobody would tell her. Nobody would explain. She hated being treated like a baby. She hated the voices being lowered when she entered the room.

If they had told her, if they had told her everything they knew, wouldn’t that have made today easier?

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Wladyslaw Starzynski, Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

She couldn’t bear the idea of him waiting in the dark. He must be hungry, thirsty. His water had probably run out. And the battery on the flashlight. But anything was better than here, she thought. Anything was better than this hell, the stink, the heat, the dust, the people screaming, the people dying.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Related Symbols: Dust
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

The one who smelled a warm, comforting, motherly smell: delicious cooking, fresh soap, clean linen. The one with the infectious laugh. The one who said that even if there was a war, they’d pull through, because they were a strong, good family, a family full of love.
That woman had little by little disappeared. She had become gaunt, and pale, and she never smiled or laughed. She smelled rank, bitter. Her hair had become brittle and dry, streaked with gray.
The girl felt like her mother was already dead.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

She held his gaze, not glancing down once. His eyes were a strange, yellowish color, like gold. His face was red with embarrassment, and she thought she felt him tremble. She said nothing, staring at him with all the contempt she could muster.
He could only look back at her, motionless. The girl smiled, a bitter smile for a child of ten, and brushed off his heavy hands.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), The Policeman
Related Symbols: Hands
Page Number: 81-82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

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.
She fell upon the tar with her teeth, gnawing at her mother’s minute stitches. Finally, the yellow piece of cloth fell away from the blouse. She looked at it. Big, black letters. JEW. She rolled it up in her hands.
“Doesn’t it look small, all of a sudden?” she said to Rachel.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski, Wladyslaw Starzynski, Rywka Starzynski , Rachel
Related Symbols: The Yellow Star
Page Number: 97-98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

All of a sudden, every ounce of hope she still harbored within her ran out. In the old lady’s eyes she read what she most dreaded. Michel was dead. Dead in the cupboard. She knew. It was too late. She had waited too long. He had not survived. He had not made it. He had died there, all alone, in the dark, with no food and no water, just the bear and the storybook, and he had trusted her, he had waited, he had probably called out to her, screamed her name again an again, “Sirka, Sirka, where are you! Where are you?” He was dead, Michel was dead. He was four years old, and he was dead, because of her.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Page Number: 118-119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

As I stood there, oblivious to the traffic, I felt I could almost see Sarah coming down the rue de Saintonge on that hot July morning, with her mother, and her father, and the policemen. Yes, I could see it all, I could see them being pushed into the garage, right here, where I now stood. I could see the sweet heart-shaped face, the incomprehension, the fear. The straight hair caught back in a bow, the slanted turquoise eyes. Sarah Starzynski. Was she still alive? She would be seventy today, I thought. No, she couldn’t be alive. She had disappeared off the face of the earth, with the rest of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ children. She had never come back from Auschwitz. She was a handful of dust.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Related Symbols: Dust
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 36 Quotes

There were several names and dates on the side of the tombstone. I leaned forward for a closer look. Children. Barely two or three years old. Children who had died at the camp, in July and August 1942. Vel’ d’Hiv’ children.
I had always been acutely aware that everything I had read about the roundup was true. And yet, on that hot spring day, as I stood looking at the grave, it hit me. The whole reality of it hit me.
And I knew that I would no longer rest, no longer be at peace, until I found out precisely what had become of Sarah Starzynski.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Bamber
Page Number: 143-144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Number 26 appeared in front of them. Nothing had changed in the street, she noticed. It was still the same calm, narrow road she had always known. How was it possible that entire lives could change, could be destroyed, and that streets and buildings remained the same, she wondered.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Jules and Geneviève Dufaure
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

I thought of Sarah Starzynski, who had been Zoë’s age when horror came into her life.
I closed my eyes. But I could still see the moment when the policemen tore the children from the mothers at Beaune-la-Rolande. I could not get the image out of my mind.
I held Zoë close, so close she gasped.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Zoë Tézac
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 44 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

As the prime minister went on, my eyes moved over the crowd. Was there anyone here who knew and remembered Sarah Starzynski? Was she here herself? Right now, at this very moment? Was she here with a husband, a child, a grandchild? Behind me, in front of me? I carefully picked out women in their seventies, scanning wrinkled, solemn faces for the slanted green eyes. But I did not feel comfortable ogling these grieving strangers. I lowered my gaze.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

After my conversation with my sister, I lay on the sofa for a long time, my hand folded over my stomach like a protective shield. Little by little, I felt vitality pumping back into me.
As ever, I thought of Sarah Starzynski, and of what I now knew. I had not needed to tape Gaspard Dufaure. Nor jot anything down. It was all written inside me.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Charla , Gaspard and Nicolas Dufaure
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 62 Quotes

Was it to do with Sarah, with the rue de Saintonge? Or was it just a belated coming-of-age? I could not tell. I only knew that I felt as if I had emerged from a long-lasting, mellow, protective fog. Now my senses were sharpened, keen. There was no fog. There was nothing mellow. There were only facts. Finding this man. Telling him his mother had never been forgotten by the Tézacs, by the Dufaures.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , William Rainsferd
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 71 Quotes

I cannot bear the weight of my past.
Yet I cannot throw away the key to your cupboard.
It is the only concrete thing that links me to you, apart from your grave.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Related Symbols: The Key
Page Number: 260
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 72 Quotes

Somehow he was no stranger to me, and more bizarre still, I felt even less a stranger to him. What had brought us together? My quest, my thirst for truth, my compassion for his mother? He knew nothing of me, knew nothing of my failing marriage, my near miscarriage in Lucca, my job, my life. What did I know of him, of his wife, his children, his career? His present was a mystery. But his past, his mother’s past, had been etched out to me like fiery torches along a dark path. And I longed to show this man that I cared, that what happened to his mother had altered my life.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , William Rainsferd
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis:
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Sarah’s Key PDF

Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski Quotes in Sarah’s Key

The Sarah’s Key quotes below are all either spoken by Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski or refer to Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Remembrance and History Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The mother pulled her daughter close to her. The girl could feel the woman’s heart beating through her dressing gown. She wanted to push her mother away. She wanted her mother to stand up straight and look at the men boldly, to stop cowering, to prevent her heart from beating like that, like a frightened animal’s. She wanted her mother to be brave.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 Quotes

Her father looked down at her. He said her name again, very softly. His eyes were still wet, his eyelashes spiked with tears. He put his hand on the back of her neck.
“Be brave, my sweet love. Be brave, as brave as you can.”
She could not cry. Her fear was so great it seemed to engulf everything else, it seemed to suck up every single emotion within her, like a monstrous, powerful vacuum.

Related Characters: Wladyslaw Starzynski (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Related Symbols: The Key
Page Number: 23
Explanation and Analysis:

Through the bus’s dusty pane, she recognized one of them, the young red-haired one who had often helped her cross the street on her way home from school. She tapped on the glass to attract his attention. When his eyes locked onto hers, he quickly looked away. He seemed embarrassed, almost annoyed. She wondered why.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), The Policeman
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

But she had seen. She knew what it was. A young woman, her mother’s age, and a small child. The woman had jumped, her child held close, from the highest railing.
From where the girl sat, she could see the dislocated body of the woman, the bloody skull of the child, sliced open like a ripe tomato.
The girl bent her head and cried.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Wladyslaw Starzynski
Page Number: 33
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

As she looked at Eva and her mother, the girl wondered if her parents had been right to protect her from everything, if they had been right to keep disturbing, bad news away fro her. If they had been right not to explain why so many things had changed from them since the beginning of the war. Like when Eva’s husband never came back last year. He had disappeared. Where? Nobody would tell her. Nobody would explain. She hated being treated like a baby. She hated the voices being lowered when she entered the room.

If they had told her, if they had told her everything they knew, wouldn’t that have made today easier?

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Wladyslaw Starzynski, Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

She couldn’t bear the idea of him waiting in the dark. He must be hungry, thirsty. His water had probably run out. And the battery on the flashlight. But anything was better than here, she thought. Anything was better than this hell, the stink, the heat, the dust, the people screaming, the people dying.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Related Symbols: Dust
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

The one who smelled a warm, comforting, motherly smell: delicious cooking, fresh soap, clean linen. The one with the infectious laugh. The one who said that even if there was a war, they’d pull through, because they were a strong, good family, a family full of love.
That woman had little by little disappeared. She had become gaunt, and pale, and she never smiled or laughed. She smelled rank, bitter. Her hair had become brittle and dry, streaked with gray.
The girl felt like her mother was already dead.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 66
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Rywka Starzynski
Page Number: 71
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

She held his gaze, not glancing down once. His eyes were a strange, yellowish color, like gold. His face was red with embarrassment, and she thought she felt him tremble. She said nothing, staring at him with all the contempt she could muster.
He could only look back at her, motionless. The girl smiled, a bitter smile for a child of ten, and brushed off his heavy hands.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), The Policeman
Related Symbols: Hands
Page Number: 81-82
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 27 Quotes

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.
She fell upon the tar with her teeth, gnawing at her mother’s minute stitches. Finally, the yellow piece of cloth fell away from the blouse. She looked at it. Big, black letters. JEW. She rolled it up in her hands.
“Doesn’t it look small, all of a sudden?” she said to Rachel.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski, Wladyslaw Starzynski, Rywka Starzynski , Rachel
Related Symbols: The Yellow Star
Page Number: 97-98
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 31 Quotes

All of a sudden, every ounce of hope she still harbored within her ran out. In the old lady’s eyes she read what she most dreaded. Michel was dead. Dead in the cupboard. She knew. It was too late. She had waited too long. He had not survived. He had not made it. He had died there, all alone, in the dark, with no food and no water, just the bear and the storybook, and he had trusted her, he had waited, he had probably called out to her, screamed her name again an again, “Sirka, Sirka, where are you! Where are you?” He was dead, Michel was dead. He was four years old, and he was dead, because of her.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Page Number: 118-119
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 34 Quotes

As I stood there, oblivious to the traffic, I felt I could almost see Sarah coming down the rue de Saintonge on that hot July morning, with her mother, and her father, and the policemen. Yes, I could see it all, I could see them being pushed into the garage, right here, where I now stood. I could see the sweet heart-shaped face, the incomprehension, the fear. The straight hair caught back in a bow, the slanted turquoise eyes. Sarah Starzynski. Was she still alive? She would be seventy today, I thought. No, she couldn’t be alive. She had disappeared off the face of the earth, with the rest of the Vel’ d’Hiv’ children. She had never come back from Auschwitz. She was a handful of dust.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Related Symbols: Dust
Page Number: 133
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 36 Quotes

There were several names and dates on the side of the tombstone. I leaned forward for a closer look. Children. Barely two or three years old. Children who had died at the camp, in July and August 1942. Vel’ d’Hiv’ children.
I had always been acutely aware that everything I had read about the roundup was true. And yet, on that hot spring day, as I stood looking at the grave, it hit me. The whole reality of it hit me.
And I knew that I would no longer rest, no longer be at peace, until I found out precisely what had become of Sarah Starzynski.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Bamber
Page Number: 143-144
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 39 Quotes

Number 26 appeared in front of them. Nothing had changed in the street, she noticed. It was still the same calm, narrow road she had always known. How was it possible that entire lives could change, could be destroyed, and that streets and buildings remained the same, she wondered.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Jules and Geneviève Dufaure
Page Number: 158
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 42 Quotes

I thought of Sarah Starzynski, who had been Zoë’s age when horror came into her life.
I closed my eyes. But I could still see the moment when the policemen tore the children from the mothers at Beaune-la-Rolande. I could not get the image out of my mind.
I held Zoë close, so close she gasped.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Zoë Tézac
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 44 Quotes

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.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 46 Quotes

As the prime minister went on, my eyes moved over the crowd. Was there anyone here who knew and remembered Sarah Starzynski? Was she here herself? Right now, at this very moment? Was she here with a husband, a child, a grandchild? Behind me, in front of me? I carefully picked out women in their seventies, scanning wrinkled, solemn faces for the slanted green eyes. But I did not feel comfortable ogling these grieving strangers. I lowered my gaze.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 47 Quotes

After my conversation with my sister, I lay on the sofa for a long time, my hand folded over my stomach like a protective shield. Little by little, I felt vitality pumping back into me.
As ever, I thought of Sarah Starzynski, and of what I now knew. I had not needed to tape Gaspard Dufaure. Nor jot anything down. It was all written inside me.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , Charla , Gaspard and Nicolas Dufaure
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 62 Quotes

Was it to do with Sarah, with the rue de Saintonge? Or was it just a belated coming-of-age? I could not tell. I only knew that I felt as if I had emerged from a long-lasting, mellow, protective fog. Now my senses were sharpened, keen. There was no fog. There was nothing mellow. There were only facts. Finding this man. Telling him his mother had never been forgotten by the Tézacs, by the Dufaures.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , William Rainsferd
Page Number: 228
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 71 Quotes

I cannot bear the weight of my past.
Yet I cannot throw away the key to your cupboard.
It is the only concrete thing that links me to you, apart from your grave.

Related Characters: Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski (speaker), Michel Starzynski
Related Symbols: The Key
Page Number: 260
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 72 Quotes

Somehow he was no stranger to me, and more bizarre still, I felt even less a stranger to him. What had brought us together? My quest, my thirst for truth, my compassion for his mother? He knew nothing of me, knew nothing of my failing marriage, my near miscarriage in Lucca, my job, my life. What did I know of him, of his wife, his children, his career? His present was a mystery. But his past, his mother’s past, had been etched out to me like fiery torches along a dark path. And I longed to show this man that I cared, that what happened to his mother had altered my life.

Related Characters: Julia Jarmond (speaker), Sarah “Sirka” Starzynski , William Rainsferd
Page Number: 262
Explanation and Analysis: