Who Is Sarah in ‘Dear Child’ & What Happened to Her?

‘Dear Child’ is one of the most recent shows on Netflix, and complex characters and their personalities enrich its mysterious and thrilling storyline. One of the characters, however, that we know very little about is Sarah, but her demise impacted everything that happened after. Let’s see who Sarah is in ‘Dear Child’ and what happened to her.

Sarah was Lena’s third child and Hannah’s and Jonathan’s sister. She died soon after birth because she was ill and had a severe fever. Lena begged Lars to call an ambulance before it was too late, but he refused. After Lena gave birth to Sarah, she developed a childbed fever and also died.

The revelation that a third child, a baby, lived in captivity and those hard conditions made Lars even more of a monster. Hannah and Jonathan witnessed their baby sister dying, and that trauma stayed with them. Let’s see in more detail what happened.

Sarah was Hannah and Jonathan’s sister who died as a baby

Everything started thirteen years ago when a security company owner, Lars Rogner, kidnapped Lena, a young woman who needed his help turning off the alarm and entering her parent’s home. Lars kidnapped her then because she reminded him of his mother, who left him without a word, so he grew up with his grandparents.

When Lars kidnaps Lena, she is already pregnant. In her captivity, she gives birth to Hannah and, after a few years, to Jonathan. Lars trains them how to behave, when to sleep, when to eat, and what to do every day. They lived in a house with no sunshine and could not go outside. Lars rewarded the children for their good behavior and ensured that Lena obeyed his every order.

As the show progressed, we learned that Hannah and Jonathan weren’t the only kids who lived in that secret house. When Jonathan was rescued from captivity, they brought him to Hannah. The boy was in shock and wouldn’t talk. Hannah wanted to know if he told the police about the baby. We learned that the baby’s name was Sarah.

The flashbacks then bring us a few years in the past. It was Christmas time, and Jonathan and Hannah got their presents from ‘Papa.’ Their mother, Lena, was in her room resting, and she was pregnant then. When Lena gave birth to Sarah, things got complicated. She developed a childbed fever.

As Hannah described it, childbed fever is an infectious disease, also known as puerperal fever, caused by a wound on the uterus due to the detachment of the placenta. In some cases, that area becomes infected and causes blood poisoning and the mother’s death.

Lena begged Lars to call the ambulance, or she and the baby would die. He declined, and Lena and Sarah both died because of it. Lena and Sarah dying greatly impacted everything that would happen later, as Lars started to kidnap other women who resembled Lena to take her place.

What significance does Sarah have in the overall storyline?

Lena was Hannah’s and Jonathan’s real mother, and Hannah loved her the most. After Lena and Sarah died, Lars kidnapped several other women who resembled her, and they became replacement mothers for Hannah and Jonathan. We never discover why and how they all died, but we know that Jasmin was the only woman who eventually survived.

Before Lena died, she begged Lars to call an ambulance. Otherwise, she and Sarah would die. He refused to do that, assuring her that everything would be okay. If Lena didn’t die, Lars would never kidnap all those women after her, and many lives would be saved. Also, Hannah never forgave Lars for letting her mother die. In the final episode, we see her cry for the first time when she tells Lars about it.

Out of all the replacement mothers, Hannah liked Jasmin the most. She reminded her of Lena, and she liked how she told stories. That’s why Hannah begged Lars to spare her life and to let the ambulance come for her.

The fact that Lars let both Lena and Sarah die rather than call the police just proves even more how twisted he was and obsessed with keeping his crimes a secret. However, what the show fails to present is where Sarah was buried. We learn that Lars buried Lena in the garden outside his house, but Sarah’s remains were never found.

Sarah was Lena’s and Lars’s child, but she wasn’t born out of love, but rape. The conditions in which Lena gave birth caused her to develop a childbed fever that ultimately took both her and Sarah’s life. Lars forbade Jonathan and Hannah to ever talk about Sarah, but Hannah eventually revealed to her grandfather what happened.

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